Frustrations

Grahh. It seems the entire world conspires against me at times. Today I went and after wandering a good portion of the city found a travel agent and got a ticket from Tokyo to Toronto really cheap. It costs more to pay directly onto credit card, so I told them I'd come back with cash. I need money from my visa to get through the next couple weeks anyway, so I went to an international ATM to take money out on it. At this point I am told by the machine that "Your card issuer has declined your transaction." I asked the people at the bank if they could call the number provided with the message and try to straighten it out, but they wouldn't do anything. I'm guessing it's flagged as suspicious because it's a withdrawl in a different country than Canada, but I called just before I left and told them I was moving so things like this wouldn't happen! My original plan was to leave for Kyoto tomorrow, but now it's looking like that might be impossible. Now that I have a date booked for my plane home, I don't want to waste that time dealing with all this mess when I could be seeing more of Japan. What a hassle. I can't call the Visa people for a few hours because they're closed right now (2:30am in Canada), and by the time I *can* get through to them, the bank and travel agent will be closed. Hopefully things come together tomorrow and I can get an overnight bus out. Still need to figure out what to do with my luggage (I called the embassy in Tokyo, and they were pretty much clueless, and just redirected me to someone's voicemail).

Intersection

Short post. Todd mentioned before that he'd like some pictures of an intersection, so as I was wandering today I came across a Y-intersection with a small bridge across it, so I took pictures of the various roads joining together. Not the most interesting of intersections I'm afraid, but here it is. (The last one is from the ground, looking up at the bridge the others were taken from.)

Food Festival Revisited

Here's the account of yesterday. Mark and I returned to the food festival. There was a big international food area that wasn't set up Saturday, so we wandered around there a bit and had lunch. (For me, lunch was a Brazilian sausage and some Indian curry with naan). Then we went back to the part of the festival next to the castle, split a cheap bottle of sake, and just sat there hanging out in the sun for a few hours. When it got dark out we got Craig to join us and sat next to the river at the Peace Park and drank some beer. Then we wandered to a game complex and had a round of bowling. Not very exciting, but it was one of those relaxing days where you really appreciate what's around you.

A musical performance at the festival. Interesting, but not really my cup of tea.

The infamous bottle of sake we sat on the grass drinking.

Mark reading the various thank you notes Nova students left taped to the door of the Honko office.

A little mini night festival going on at one of the shrines. More food vendors around it.

The A-Bomb dome as we sat in the Peace Park drinking.

Hiroshima Food Festival

This weekend is the Hiroshima Food Festival, which is set up around the Hiroshima Castle. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it was free to go check it out, so I decided to take a look. As I got closer to the area it was in, I could tell by the massive number of people moving about that it was probably bigger than I initially thought. I also soon learned that it was more than just a festival for food, although food was certainly the major theme. All told, I think there was more than 400 food vendors set up, and probably another 50 or so booths selling used clothing, plants, appliances, and all manner of other odds and ends. There were also various entertainment set up in the area - some directly part of the festival and others I think just taking advantage of the number of people in the area for the day.
You can kind of get an idea of the crowds from this. This picture has 3-4 vendors though, and as I said, there was probably over 400, so you get an idea for how massive it was in total.

An okonomiyaki vendor.

I'm sure there is an appropriately Japanese name for this that I don't know, but for me, it's fish-on-a-stick. Yummy?

Some wandering guys dressed up as samurai. It was a pretty hot day, so they must have been boiling on this outfits.

I boat that circled the moat around Hiroshima Castle all day. I think you could pay to sit on it as the rowed it around, but I was far too cheap to do that.

The Food Festival Continues!

Yakitori grilling. Those Japanese like their skewered meat.

Some performance involving like... giant snake dragon puppets, and a guy with a sword at one point, and some dancing... I'm sure there was a story involved, but I have no clue what it was.

They had a big section with a bunch of plant displays. I think it was a sort of plant exhibition going on as part of the festival, but a lot of them were really impressive.

Some music. I actually thought this band was really good. I find much of the music popular with Japanese people pretty boring and much of it is too much the same, but this was a bit rockier and had more edge to it. Good variety in their songs too. Too bad I don't know their name.

The garden show center piece. It was this huge garden made in the form of a model of Miyajima. The torii and everything is on the other side (I have pictures of that side too, but I'm only going to include the one here). Pretty amazing though.

I didn't really have much to eat at the festival... I bought some orange icecream which they make right in front of you, squeezing the orange juice and everything, and I had a few miniature okonomiyakis which cost 100 yen each.

Plans

Well, I've learned now that beginning in November I either need to start paying rent here, which I can't afford without using my credit card, or leave the apartment. Nova is shut down for restructuring for at least the next 10 days, and after that it's still awfully iffy. So, assuming I haven't found a job by the end of the month, I see myself with 2 main options. First, I could just buy a plane ticket, and head home, probably losing about $4000 on this venture. Other choice is that I can spend a couple weeks running about Japan and actually see the country, and head home, probably losing $5000. For the extra $1000, I'm thinking it's probably worth seeing the country and getting a bit more mileage out of this experience. I'll start deciding things and hopefully have a plan one way or the other by the end of the week.

Drama!

Ok. Quick post. So, everything is shut down today. The president of Nova got fired, and the government has taken over Nova under some special law. There is a good chance that it will be going bankrupt in the next few days. In a way, it's good because now we know what's going on and it won't just keep dragging on. The bad news is that you need to have been working in Japan for 3 months before you can be entitled to any unemployment insurance. With Nova gone under, it's likely that our landlord is going to be kicking us out before long, and still no real leads on a job. Unless something develops quickly, I'll probably need to get a ticket home, and maybe I'll come back and try again in a bit. The uncertainty was ok when I at least had a place to stay, but I don't have enough money for a place to live and I'm not sure I can keep waiting for a job if I'm going to lose my apartment. Anyway, if anybody knows where I can get cheap plane tickets, let me know! It looks like it's $2000 for a one-way ticket, or something like half that for a round-trip ticket. Not sure if I can just get a round-trip one and cancel the second half....

Weekend Summary

Debating whether to go to work tomorrow or just keep hunting for jobs. Some places I've applied have told me outright "we're being flooded by Nova employees, so we're not even looking at applications by anybody currently working for Nova". Hopefully that some of the smaller/more out of the way places aren't so overwhelmed.
My art project is going to take a big longer than I had thought. Yesterday I got a late start, and today it rained for most of the day. I'll keep working on it when I have time though, and hopefully it will be completed soon! Instead I just uploaded a few random pictures taken from my wanderings over the last couple days.

A bunch of vending machines. There are 5 more to the right that I couldn't fit in the photo. So far, the biggest group of machines I've come across.

This is looking down Rijo dori. If you look closely a few blocks ahead you can see a bunch of people walking across the street - that is where Hondori intersects Rijo dori.
A bit of a mouthful. Miyuki bashi-nishizume dori Avenue.

Craziness

So I went in to work today, and just before I was about to start my lessons, I was told by the Japanese staff that nobody else was coming in today. From what I can gather, 2 of them are "striking" because of the pay thing, and 2 of them are legitimately sick, and the other one had her regular day off today. Well, this changed my schedule around a lot, but since the kid classes are the highest priority, I ended up doing 4.5 hours of kids straight, and then had lessons with the max number of students for the rest. On the plus side, one of my students (Megumi) brought in these yummy pastry things filled with cream as a gift. At least I have my weekend now, to relax and figure things out a bit more.
I still have my weekly excursion planned for tomorrow. I'm going to do some job hunting as well, but I figured it would be sad if I stopped doing anything fun while I'm here. The tentative plan is a combination scavenger hunt/art project, and if it works out you'll see the result at some point over the next week! If it doesn't work out, I'm sure something equally interesting will happen, so I'll talk about that instead.

Update on Life

Still no pay, and at this point, I'm thinking it's pretty unlikely I'll ever see any of the $3000 I'm now owed. Strangely, I'm kind of at peace about it all. For now, I'm still going in to work for 3 reasons. First, I don't really have much else to do. I've been applying for new jobs, but you need to remember I came with the expectation of not only getting a pay cheque, but getting a cash advance from the company to survive the first few months. Without either, moving, paying rent on a new place and buying food until I start getting paid by them is looking unlikely. Second, I feel bad for the students. They're hurt by this too, since the way Nova is set up they pay heaps of money for lessons for multiple years, which they're likely to all lose now. Finally, part of me is still hoping that I'll get at least the first paycheque. At this point, I'll probably keep applying for jobs until the end of my 2 days off, and if I don't have any promising leads consider just packing things in (and paying a huge cancellation penalty for my phone). As I see things though, it's been a great experience, and I've learned a lot about myself and about the world. It's too bad things have gone this way, but maybe it means my karma is owed now. Does karma pay interest? Most of the employees are a bit shell-shocked right now. Today, there was only one instructor in the head branch. I had this one kid class today where only a single 5 year old girl showed up, and because her friends were there, she just sat there and cried the entire class. I kind of knew how she felt. I still have about half the money I came over with left. I don't think that it's quite enough for a plane ticket home, but I've always got credit cards too. Just kind of debating now how long I should hold out before I give up. The three main options if I'm not paid are to a)cut my losses and go home immediately, b)splurge on the remaining of my money and see a bit more of Japan, but come home even more in debt, or c)keep living off the cheapest of food and drag things out while hoping for something good to come along. Despite the horror of it all, I'm still in a pretty good mood about things, and am finding it easier to just be amused by the irony of the entire thing than to really get upset. Life's crazy sometimes.

As for winning at the end, this power.

Today is the conclusion of my first month in Hiroshima! By now, I've seen most of the big touristy things around, so today I had decided to do something a little different. I bought a one day streetcar pass, which gives you unlimited use of all streetcar line all day, and more or less just started taking random streetcars, getting off at random places, and wandering around. Sometimes I would just wander around for 15 minutes and get back on the next car, sometimes I would go on long walks for 2 hours and find my way back, and sometimes I would just walk from one stop to the next and see what was between. Mostly I stuck to the route 2 line, which heads out of the main part of the city, and has a lot of residential area. Because of the randomness of the activity, I coherent dialogue of events is impossible, so I'll just post a bunch of pictures and explain what was going on for that picture.

The schoolboys smoking under the bridge. It's just like home!

Japansese love their bridges. I tried getting a picture with this pretty white bird, but it kept flying away, so I just snapped the bridges instead.

Some schoolgirls. The entire Japanese school uniform system is so much cooler than the uniform system they use in North American private schools. The uniforms are better, and it's neat how every school has a unique uniform. I think the reasoning behind having uniforms in the two countries is completely different.

Random picture near a bus station.

Another random picture. I know I take a lot of these pictures looking down at the city, but there's so many hills/mountains everywhere that I can't help it! The water and islands in the background always look so cool.

(continued...)

More pictures...

Me! I know the picture sucks, but it's hard to take pictures of oneself. I tried to do a timer one with a zoom, but it came out really fuzzy.

The only indication I've seen of halloween in any residential area. Some of the stores have candy, but it's nowhere near what it is back home.

Some bamboo, because bamboo is neato.

Lots of gardens/small farms with these where I was wandering. I think it's a fig, but I'm not really an expert on fruit.

The titlepiece! "As for winning at the end, this power. " It's funny when english is so mangled that you can't even understand what they were trying to say.

More Pictures (last one)

A car salesroom. Normal enough, right? Well, this is "Hybrid Paradise", and it happens to be on the 5th floor of a shopping complex. Not really sure how they got the cars up, or how they get them down, unless in Japan hybrid means that they both drive and fly. It *is* Japan after all.

It's the Colonel! KFC and McDonalds are the only 2 fastfood restaurants from North American I've seen. (I'm told that there's a Wendy's in Osaka though).

A Mazda factory (I think). It had this really nice park around it which seemed to be the popular hangout for the neighborhood.

Part of the park, swarming with kids. I took more pictures after this, but as you can begin to see in this one, it was getting darker out and I had a hard time getting clear pictures.

This last one is of Shareo. It's an underground shopping mall that connects to a bunch of different large department stores, streetcar stations, train stations, etc. It's shaped like a big wheel, with a circular sitting area and information desk at the middle, and a number of "spokes" in all directions. This picture is of one such spoke, but I think there's 10 or 12 of them in total.

R&R

My tentative way of handling my 2 days off so far has been to relax and take care of things like laundry and cleaning on the first day, and then use the second day to go accomplish things and explore. That was the plan for this week as well, but I found myself bored and wanting to go for a walk so I cheated a bit. I didn't have much of a destination in mind, but heading north I eventually found myself at the Hiroshima Museum of Art. The sign at the front indicated that there was a special exhibit of art by Hiroshi Noda that was going to end in 2 days, so I thought I should go check it out! It doesn't matter that I had no clue who Hiroshi Noda was. Anyway, it ended up costing 1000 yen (which is like $8) to get into the permanent collection and the special exhibit, which was reasonable enough for me. I was actually pretty impressed by the permanent collection. It isn't huge, but it has some really good art in it. Some notable artists: Millet, Manet, Monet, Renoir, van Gogh, Picasso and Delacroix. No pictures allowed though, sorry! I then continued to the second building for the special exhibit. I didn't really know what to expect, but it turns out Hiroshi Noda is amaaaazing. The exhibit was called "Hiroshi Noda - Beyond the Realism", which was entirely appropriate. The collection was a combination of portraits, still lifes and landscapes, but all of the paintings were so realistic they almost looked photograph quality. It's hard to really describe the artwork, and unfortunately I haven't had much luck finding good quality versions on the internet, but you can get an idea at http://www.hiroshima-museum.jp/works_nodahiroshi. He seems to like having some very organic subject, like grapes, or pumpkins and then taking some rougher detail like a scratched up table or rock to balance it. Very interesting artwork though.

I stopped at a donut shop on the way home, and noticed in the back corner a small staircase leading downwards, with a sign above it that simply said "Fresh". Curious, I followed the little cement staircase downwards, and against all reason found myself in an bustling full-sized underground grocery store. I think the grocery store is part of a little mini-mall, and the nearby buildings just happen to have exits to it, but it was still a bit surreal. You never know what you're going to find when you just randomly turn the corner. Japan is so weird.

So, I still have my exploration plan set for tomorrow, so unless anything unexpected happens, I'll probably write about that tomorrow.

Checking In

Another week almost done. I was supposed to be paid today, and that didn't come through, but we had been warned it wouldn't. Hopefully we'll get it by Friday.

I had my crazy kid class today. I'm actually liking most of the kid classes because they're a refreshing change from the repetition of the day. The one today has two kids (Yuuta and Ryou) that just don't settle down and are running around the entire time. My Sunday class has this one kid (Yuuya) who is seriously one of the smartest kids I've ever met. He's only 8 or something, but he picks things up super fast, and his English is better than a lot of the adults I have to deal with.

One of the best things about dealing with different students every day is that you can pick up so much information about Japanese culture in the process. A lot of it is just small things like how they think of things differently than us. On a related note - the top 10 travel destinations of people I've talked to, in descending order: Hawaii, Australia, China, Korea, mainland USA, Europe (often a bunch of countries at once), Guam, Thailand, Canada, Russia.
I had heard that one of the regular students, an older guy named Izuta, was a big fan of go/igo. Today I had him, so I asked him about it at the end of class. Now he wants to take me to one of the go places he frequents and introduce me to everybody and teach me. He says he's around 5 dan, which is miles and miles beyond me, but I think it's great and hopefully next time I see him we can work out some details about it.

Hmm, what else... oh, I found a place in Diamond City today that has lychee bubble tea, so I hooked myself up with some of that. Adapting to dealing with a different language is an interesting process. Learning bits and pieces of Japanese is definately a help, but I find that learning what English to use with people is even more important. For example, if I ask a student what their interests are, they look at me blankly, but if I ask what their hobbies are, they know immediately what I mean. Likewise, they don't know "Have we met before?", but a simple "First time?" and they know what you mean. They just seem to pick up on certain key words, which is especially useful at restaurants and shopping.

I missed the Saijo sake festival because of work, but from the rumors of the fallout from that, probably a good thing I did mess it.

I've kind of decided what I'm doing for my days off, but it's going to remain a mystery for now. My clue is that it continues my current theme of interesting experiences on a low budget.

Anyway, unless something relevant happens tomorrow I'll probably write next at some point over my days off.

Adventures in Miyajima - Super Birthday Edition!!!

Exciting day! Thusly, long post (or, more precisely, 3 posts, because of all the pictures!) Ok, so yesterday I mentioned that I was planning to head down to Miyajima finally, and this time I got around to actually doing it. For those of you that don't know, Miyajima is one of Japan's "3 top views", which is a list given by some guy a long time ago, kind of like the ancient wonders of the world. It's famed for it's "floating torii". I'm not sure of the exact details, but from what I've read, the island was considered an island of god back in the day, and regular folk weren't allowed on it, so they made a temple and torri in the water (at least during high tide) for people to pray. That's all I really knew about the island going in.

To begin this morning, I got a one day streetcar/ferry pass. It lets you take any streetcars and the Miyajima ferry as many times as you want for the day. Miyajima is the farthest stop on the longest streetcar line, but it was an interesting to see more of the suburbs and residential parts of Hiroshima. Once there, I got on the ferry and floated my way across to the island.

(This is looking back the way we'd come from the ferry.)


Miyajima has all these rocky outcrops and tons of little shrines and temples and statues all over the place. The combination is quite striking. I didn't really know where I was going or what I was doing, just kind of wandering and checking things out.

Another interesting point - there's deer EVERYWHERE in Miyajima. The roads are almost all strictly pedestrian, and the deer just wander along with the people. The energetic ones would follow anybody with a bag hoping for treats, but most were content to just curl up and nap wherever they could find some shade.

Yay rickshaws. I just thought it was neat because the guy had all the traditional clothes and hair. The contrast between the rickshaw and the old woman with the walker wasn't intentional, but I'm going to pretend it's some meaningful comment on society.

Part 2 coming shortly!

Miyajima (Part 2)

So here is the famous torii. Because the tide was out the area around it was sandy. I didn't get down and walk up to it, because I didn't really see much point. There were a lot of tour groups and stuff around too, so I didn't really stick around too long. As with all big scenic places, the major part of Miyajima was pretty touristy in general, with lots of little gift shops.


Looming above it all were the mountains - Mt. Misen most of all. More on that later...

I wandered around some of the temples, gardens and other buildings in the immediate area. There's a lot of emphasis on traditional architecture. They even have all these intricate stone channels to control water flow - all made of old stone blocks pieced together.

One of the major paths was labelled as going to the aquarium and some park, so I decided to follow it. The aquarium looked interesting, it is supposedly one of the largest in western Japan, but it was another 1000 yen to get in, and I decided to pass it up this time around. I went to the park instead, and wandered around it for awhile.

(Only one part left!)

Miyajima (Part 3)

From the park, I found a hiking trail that went up the mountain. "Very Hard Pass"? Pshhhh, how hard could it be? (Famous last words). Anyway, it sounded like a challenge.

Ok, so it was indeed very hard... It's pretty much climbing stairs at a 45 degree angle for somewhere near 2 hours. It winded up the mountain, and seemed to go on forever. I was thoroughly exhausted by the time I got to the top, but I was victorious! It was a stunning view down though.

(See the little break in the trees in the middle, right against the water? That's where the hike began...)

I kind of copped out for the trip down. I was exhausted, the sun was starting to go down (awfully dangerous to be climbing down steep stairs), and I wasn't really sure when the last ferry back to the mainland ran, so I ended up taking the rope car thing down from near the summit. Climbing it was the hard part anyway, so I didn't feel too bad about taking the easy way back down.

There was a nice sunset as I was heading back to the ferry, so I decided to snap one more photo of the torii with the sunset in the background. The tide was up a bit by now, so it was surrounded by water this time too.

Anyway, that's all for today. Back to work for tomorrow...