Shopping in Osu

Do you remember my traumatizing lunch where some of the ladies from work scrutinized the food I packed?! We made plans to go shopping way back in December, and the day has finally arrived!!

First, the meet up spot... here is the "Kin no Tokei", which means Gold Clock. It is in the center of Nagoya Station. I walk by it nearly every day and had no idea it had a special name or was such a popular meeting place! As a side note, whenever meeting my Japanese friends, I don't ever bother looking for them. There are so many tiny Asian girls with dark hair it's crazy. I know I don't blend in at all, so I just let them come to me :) Instead, I use that time to people watch. It never gets old... the outfits, the running in heels, the man bags, everything makes me smile!

Kerri and Hiroko at Osu Street. It's about 4 square blocks of covered shopping, lots of little restaurants, and, of course, a diverse group of people!

Yuri and Hiroko picked a yummy Italian pizza place for lunch! Oddly, the restaurant only served 4 types of pizzas, and they were all some version of Margherita with basil leaves, tomatoes, and mozzarella. Even without pepperoni, I enjoyed it immensely!!

Another shopping section of Osu.

We are approaching Osu Kannon temple, and it's guarded by devils!! I thought this building was pretty cool!

Yuri, Kerri, & Hiroko just threw our yen, rang the bell, clapped, and said our prayer at Osu Kannon temple. I'm an old pro at this temple business by now!! My friends were impressed that I knew the drill!

Look at this sweet magazine I found for my sister!! It's all in Japanese and read right to left!

We stopped for Japanese sweets!! This experience was much better than my first one. I got a parfait with chocolate cookies, raspberries, vanilla ice cream, and lots of whipped cream! Hiroko got brown sugar cheesecake, and it tastes exactly like it sounds. Yuri ordered flavored tea.

My favorite part about today was that we truly had no plans. We simply walked around leisurely and explored, stopping to shop whenever a store caught our interest. (I bought some earrings, mint candy, and pastries for breakfast tomorrow!) It was nice to wander around and to not have to rush anywhere. I also liked that we ate whenever we wanted at wherever looked good! Sometimes I feel like Japan is a little too structured, the train schedules are too specific, and people are always rushing some where!

Finally, I told Hiroko and Yuri that I was planning to see an American movie "Valentine's Day" next weekend on February 14th. (See, I have become Japanese by scheduling events so far in advance, even the ones I plan to do by myself!) They thought it sounded awesome, so now we are going together!! And surprisingly Yuri pointed this billboard out to me in the subway! I guess she already knew what movie I was talking about! They both have boyfriends, so we may have to go another day besides Feb 14th, but I think I can be flexible and change my "schedule".

Bath time with KG

Here's a little fun to start your weekend... a blog about bathtubs in Japan!

I've been here over 3 months, and I haven't taken a bath yet! Mostly because my tub just looks weird. It's square and small and deep and doesn't look appealing to me. But I figured I better try it at least once before I judge!

First, I need to get some hot water. To get any time of hot water in my apartment it's certainly a process. I have to hold down the gas, crank the knob, count to 6, light the flame, make sure I can see the flame through this tiny window in my heater, and then finally turn on the hot water tap.

I always knew the shower head was low flow, but I never realized how long it would take to fill up a tub full of water--over 30 minutes!! My sister can vouch for that because we were on the phone together for the entire time I was preparing. I even had to bust out my "English" instruction manual from my apartment to ensure I knew what the heck I was doing. Once the water level was over the 2 "heaters" in the tub, I could switch the gas contraption to "bath mode". The heaters are basically half-dollar sized holes that I now know just crank out gas heat. The disturbing part was that I could really smell gas when "bath mode" was on. Not cool!

Next, the water is getting increasingly hotter, but I have no idea how high to fill it because I'm not an expert on the water displacement ratio for square tubs. But I know this for sure: Once I'm in that tub, I'm not getting out to hold down the gas, crank the knob, count to 6, and light the flame just to get more water.

As it turns out, I guessed pretty closely. I had about an inch and a half to spare at the top of the tub, and I don't mind slopping water everywhere since outside is technically the shower and the drain.

By this time, the water is HOT, and putting any body part in front of those "heaters" is a bad idea. I have no idea how you would give a small child a bath in here because seriously, who has 30 minutes to draw a bath for their kids?! And "Kids, don't go on this side of the tub, or you may burn your hand off!"

Soon enough, I turned off "bath mode", and just let the water cool down. In Japan the tradition is to wash yourself and then you get in the tub to soak and relax. I must say I wasn't feeling very relaxed though. I was folded into a little ball!

Here's a picture of Kerri folded in the tub! You can see it's getting pretty steamy in there from the hot water! Also, being so close to the window is kinda creepy. People can walk by right outside. Sure, it's "frosted" glass, but still creepy!

If there was a sport for "Bathtub Pretzel Olympics", I would surely be a gold medalist!!

At the bottom left of this picture, you can see the knob I have to crank, and the tiny window I look through to see if the flame is lit.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot... as the water was draining, guess what also came out from under the bathtub?! A child's yellow and blue bath toy!! No joke... Apparently small children do take baths in these things! I also learned that my bathroom drain works just fine for low flow showers, but doesn't really like that sudden rush of bath water!! As fun as this blog post was, I still think it might be my last bath for awhile!!

Setsubun

Today I had a lunch date with 3 of my favorite Japanese ladies. They took me to a new place called "Ciao", which serves spaghetti and appears to be Italian, but so many things in Japan aren't what they first seem!!

This wasn't your normal spaghetti. It was a Nagoya speciality, and unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me :( But I will do my best to describe it in detail. The noodles are Japanese and are thicker than normal spaghetti, and the sauce was orangish, thick, sticky, & a little spicy. The really strange part is you get to put a bunch of random toppings on it! The one I ordered was called "bopon" and had spinach, mushrooms, corn, and pork slices!! It was an interesting combination, but not too bad. I'm told that many visitors, especially those from the Tokyo office, love this place because it's so regional.

While we were eating, one of the women gave me a "present". It is pictured below.

I had no idea what it was, but thanked her any way. She came prepared with an English printout and told me it was for "Setsubun".

As it turns out Setsubun is from the Lunar calendar and is considered the traditional end of winter. This year it is celebrated on February 3rd, and February 4th is officially the start of spring. (Although the weather here may not reflect it!) Many years ago Japan celebrated Setsubun as New Year's Eve!

Back to my "present"... in order to celebrate Setsubun properly, roasted soybeans are either thrown out the door or at a family member wearing a demon mask while and shouting the phrase "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi". Loosely translated this means "Demons Out, Luck In." In addition, to guarantee good health, one must collect the scattered beans and then eat the number corresponding to their age!

I saved 29 beans, ate them (pretty dry and tasteless), and then threw the rest over my balcony while shouting! Moments like this, I really wish I had a family member around so they could don a demon mask, and I'd have an excuse to throw things at them!!

Fall & Winter

Nagoya locals tell me that we are having a rough winter. We've had 3 days with snow flurries so far, and it's usually only 1 per season! I've taken a few "winter" pictures here, and I will also post their comparison pictures from the fall.

Fall: Mt. Fuji in November

Winter: Mt. Fuji in January. (I also like this pic because you can see how fast the bullet train moves based on the blurry trees!)

Fall: View from my balcony

Winter: View from my balcony during snow flurries!

Winter (again): After all of the flurries end

Fall: Street in front of my apartment

Winter: Street in front of my apartment during snow

Fall: View of Lucent Tower

Winter: (you guessed it!) Lucent Tower during snow

Fall: Train tracks behind my house

Winter: Train tracks with a tiny bit of snow

Quick trip to Hong Kong & China

On Friday I went to China and finally saw some familiar faces from Mitsui and Transfreight. We had a full day of visiting our sister company, Transfreight China, and a plant tour of their customer, Toyota China. Both facilities are in Guangzhou, but there were no flights into Guangzhou, so that's why I had to fly into Hong Kong and then take a 2-hour car ride.

You may recall in a earlier blog that I said Hong Kong is part of China, but not really. I don't have much to say about Hong Kong since I was there for a whole 6 hours. It was dark when I arrived and still dark when I left, but in Hong Kong they drive on the left side of the road. So when we went through the border of China, then the road switched to driving on the right side!! Every time we came to a toll booth, the driver had to put the vehicle in park, get out, walk around the car, and swipe his card! The whole thing was so silly!!

After a hard day's work, we went out for a traditional Chinese dinner where 12 people sat at a round table and shared food from the center. It reminded me of Japan because the dishes never seemed to stop coming. There were so many options, and you could just grab whatever you wanted with your chopsticks! I tried pretty much everything except this fish head below. They really wanted me to dig out and eat the cheek meat, but I declined. The theme the entire night was "This dish is really good for you." Uh, well, I didn't see anyone else scrambling for this cheek meat after I declined it! I think they just mess with me some times to see much how I will believe!

Oh yeah, one plate of chicken came with even the head on it!!

After dinner we walked around the streets of Guangzhou, checking out the sights and window shopping. The Chinese are preparing for the New Year on February 14th, and they often celebrate this holiday for a whole week! Everyone loves the Year of the Tiger!!

Me and my trainer, Kawakami. I thought it was so funny to see Pizza Hut in Chinese characters!!

In one area there was a row of glass boxes and you could see a street below. This is the original street from the "Song Dynasty" from the years 960-1279 A.D.!! It's crazy to imagine the depth of the history in China and that so much of it still remains!

Trees decorated with lights and red lanterns for the Chinese New Year.

The company "361 Degrees" is a big sponsor of the Asian Olympic games, which will take place in Guangzhou in late 2010.

I love these cute cartoon characters supporting the 2010 Asian Olympic games, too!!

China was very interesting, but the air quality in Guangzhou is terrible. Visibility is poor due to smog and haze, so much you often can't see the top of skyscrapers and towers. I heard that one Mitsui guy from Japan lived there for 7 years, and when he came back his doctor told him he needed to stop smoking. But this guy wasn't a smoker!! His lungs were damaged from sucking in all of the secondhand smoke and dirty air!

You had to insert your room key in the hotel elevator and then select the floor you wanted to go to. My companions are convinced it's because the Chinese government is tracking everyone and wants to know when you are in your room or not!! It is a little sketchy... when I tried to used the internet, many sites were completely inaccessible, such as facebook, youtube, blogspot, and others!

Finally, I wasn't sure they were going to let me leave China. The Immigrations officer was really studying my passport and then me, and then back and forth again. Finally she asked "Is this really you?" I said yes. And she responded by saying the photo didn't look like me and that person was fat!! My travel buddies thought this was hysterical! I was kind of offended, but then it's better to hear that I look fat in an old photo rather than hearing that I look fat in person, I guess! I pulled my hair back, tried to form a double chin, and finally they let me get on the plane!!

Singapore: Final Thoughts

My last free evening in Singapore, I wanted to try a signature dish called "chicken rice", so me and 2 new friends from Thailand decided to try out Hawker Center. A Hawker Center is basically a giant food court with hundreds of authentic vendors, and the food is super cheap. The tables are also kind of dirty, and locals are constantly coming up to you trying to peddle their food, too. So you take the good with the bad...

Chicken rice was good. It's exactly what it sounds like: a bed of rice with strips of chicken on it and of course some special sauce. The strange part for me was that the entire body of the chicken was cut into strips, so I had tons of small bones I had to pick out or spit out while I was eating.

After dinner my Thai companions wanted to take me to Chinatown for some yummy dessert. They've been in Singapore many times and said they knew just the place! Here's a pic of me in Chinatown. It is decorated for the Chinese New Year (which begins Feb 14th). Dessert Time! It's called Milk Snow Ice and is a cross between ice cream and a snow cone. I got mango flavor--super yummy!!

On my fifth day in S'pore, I woke up and was ready to move on to my next adventure. I was getting tired of the hot, humid temperatures that made my hair frizzy and the air thick & sticky.

I overheard some Asians in my training class talking about where they went to dinner the previous night, and they said "We went to a restaurant where you could litter peanut shells!! It was so COOL!" That made me smile. Welcome to any Texas Roadhouse, Outback, or Logan's!! Comments like this help me remember that America has some pretty cool things, too!

My hotel in Singapore had a great buffet spread, and I got to try many new fruits such as: dragonfruit, guava, papaya, and yellow watermelon.

On the final day I also found out to Singaporeans take the concept of "feng shui" very seriously. For instance, the Singapore Flyer used to rotate in the other direction when it first opened, and then it was discovered that it was bad luck, so they switched it and now it rotates in the same direction as the sun!! In addition, the new building that I kept taking pictures of which has 3 columns is designed that way due to feng shui experts!! They say III or the number three is going to bring good fortune and many people to the new attraction!!

My final stop was, of course, the Singapore Airport. It's rated one of the best in the world to have a layover! There are many attractions and things to keep you busy, including 300+ shops, a free movie theater, indoor nature trail with koi pond, napping areas, spa services, and even a butterfly garden!!

I felt like I was at Krohn Conservatory!! Singapore really prides themselves on being a "green" city, and here's some human-sized recycling containers!!

The arrival area of the airport.

Even the departure area is pretty and colorful! Few people are here because they are either getting a massage or checking their email on one of the 200+ free internet terminals!

Finally, people all around the world call Sinagpore "a fine city" because they are known for their strict rules and fines that go along with them. I kept a close eye out, but I saw few such signs. Besides, I say there is nothing wrong with a little order in this world and having signs to warn people of the consequences. Here are some real-life examples:

--Smoking in restricted areas $500

--Spitting in public $300

--Not flushing a public toilet $150

--Littering $500

--Using chewing gum $800 (they don't sell it in the city, and possession isn't a crime--just chewing it!)

It's not always a fine--some times the penalty is DEATH for your crime! This is on the S'pore Immigration card!!

Singapore Flyer & Night Safari

Another free evening in Singapore, and I was ready to explore! First stop is the Singapore Flyer, which opened in 2008. At 165 meters tall (about 42 stories), it is the largest observation wheel in the world--that's 30 meters higher than the London Eye. Each "capsule" is the size of a city bus and has the capacity for 28 people.

The sky's the limit on this one!! One full rotation takes approximately 30 minutes.

View of the Kallang River. The high-rise buildings to the right are all apartments. Over 1,000,000 actually. They were one of the first things built when Singapore was settled in order to bring expatriates to the country!

View of ships waiting to enter the world's busiest port. Singapore Port handles one fifth of the world's shipping containers and over half of the world's crude oil!! The islands in the far distant are actually Indonesia. (On the opposite side of the Flyer you can often see the mountains of Malaysia, but it wasn't a very clear day for me to take a photo.)

Construction of the future IR (Integrated Resort). It's a fancy term for a casino development, along with hotels, conference centers, shopping, and plenty of other entertainment. This is the same construction I took a picture of from the boat tour, but at a different angle.

KG listening to her handheld guide and following along on the map.

Singapore rush hour... oddly, they often call it "Happy Hour"... hmm, maybe I need to check the drinking and driving laws!

The "13" Building. It was a lucky number for the architect.

Stadium seating I also took a pic of from the boat tour. This time you can see the "floating field" that goes along with it!

Singapore skyline of the Financial District. They are building a new swirly pedestrian bridge right next to the highway.

Next, I went to the world's first nocturnal zoo: Night Safari!! The head of the Mitsui Singapore office gave it rave reviews, so I had to give it a look.

The entire zoo is almost completely dark, with a 45-minute tram ride available and three walking trails which takes approximately 30 minutes each. They have 120 species and over 1,000 animals.

I started on the tram was shocked that there were no cages or fences and that many of the animals roamed around, resting on the tram trail or even 12 inches from the tram path. I am constantly shocked by the lack of safety measures in Asia. There are no guard rails on the tram. There are no gates for the pedestrians to know that a tram (with no headlights) is coming and you should get off of the path crossing. People could jump out of the tram, or animals could seemingly jump in at any time.

There were animals from 6 different continents, and many I had never heard of. We saw: lions, sloths, hyenas, deer, porcupines, elephants, giraffes, zebras, rhinos, hippos, tigers, and many others. I was pretty freaked out that the animals could be lurking any where in the dark. Some paths even had "rumble strips", I'm sure so the tram made some noise and scared the animals away a little bit. Towards the end, I did see some "moats" around a few of the exhibits, so at least I knew it was unlikely for jungle cats to pounce out and get me!

Well, if I was a little freaked out by the tram, I was in no way prepared for the walking trails. I was technically sightseeing by myself, but there were people and families every where, and every time a bush shook up ahead or a leaf dropped, I would jump a mile!! These nocturnal animals were just so creepy. I guess I really don't appreciate rare bats or other creepy Asian tree vermin. I have no doubt that if my zoo buddy from Cinci, Sarah, were with me, she would have been just as freaked out!! We would have been chasing each other from one scary exhibit to another. I think the worst part was the bird cages. You had to go through a series of magnetic doors to get into the exhibit, and the only way to get the second door to open was if the first one was closed. One time the room was filling up and no one would shut the first door, so we couldn't proceed to the second door, and I felt like I was in a fire drill. All of these people are pushing to get out, but there is no exit because it's blocked!! Traumatizing, in fact.

So it was an experience, but maybe there's a reason why it hasn't caught on in the rest of the world. And I know I've been raving about the nice warm weather here, but being in the rain forest tonight was humid and at times I felt like I was suffocating (especially when it stunk like animals). Isn't foliage supposed to make the air clean, not the other way around?! Maybe I will stick to the daytime zoo trips from now on...