Sunday, October 31, 2010

Fugu

Hello there,

weee, I'm almost through my first month in Tokyo. Didn't get to blog as often as i wanted to, sorry. Will let you know more once i get to do it (already started to write more posts).

For now, two pictures will have to do.

You might've heard of fugu. Or at least seen the early Simpsons episode where Homer eats fugu and is told that he has only 24 hours left to live. Obviously you can get fugu here in Japan. But it's expensive and 'just for the thrill of it' not worth it for me. Nevertheless i consumed some unexpected fugu: fugu Sake. Some colleagues from my research lab at the university had it and shared it with me and the other labmates last Thursday. As you can see it has a comic little fugu painted on top of it. Of course there was a bottle inside this carton box, but the box was more interesting so i took a photo of that. As for the taste: well, it was Sake that tasted a little fishy. Won't become one of my favourites :-P

Another pic from university: taken at last friday's edition of the weekly International Friday Lounge where i am helping out as one of the official language assitants. Since Halloween stuff can be bought here same as in Europe - meaning there is no tradition of Halloween but thanks to global commericalization they have it, too - the theme of the day was Halloween and ghosts in general/in your home country. The sensei brought some Halloween decorations including this hat, which she asked me to wear.
"Silly Hats ONLY!"

That's it for today, so I'll leave you with this:
I'm a banana!

ps: if you don't know what the last lines were about, watch this. But be advised, it might be a little disturbing. And funny.

Monday, October 25, 2010

General hints about Japan

Hello there,

some general hints for your next time in Japan:
  • ATM: if you plan on using a Maestro card to withdraw money, good luck :-P your best bet is to find a 7-Eleven and use its ATM (they all have one inside) or a Citibank. Not common. If you don't see a Maestro logo on, it won't give you money. Really nice how many unwanted receipts i got printed from ATMs telling me that my card is not valid with that particular machine. In short, have a back-up plan.
  • public garbage bins: they (almost) don't exist. Get used to it. Your best chance might be looking for a kombini=convenience store, they're everywhere and most of them have garbage bins in front - for their customers, assuming they buy stuff and eat it in front of the store hence the bins.
  • take your shoes off when you enter someone's home. Most likely there will be a place to put them, and a little step after entering marking the 'starting line' of the no-shoe area. Oh, and home can also mean someone's car, or the plastic blanket they bring for sitting upon while picnicking :)
  • if it looks like cheese in its package, it most likely isn't. Experiences so far:
  1. looks like Feta: Tofu (that was easy to guess, even without anything in English on it)
  2. looks like processed cheese packed in little sausage-form-thingies and right next to the little snack-sausages in the supermarket: some kind of fish-paste. Bäh.
  • public toilets: when in need, and somewhere inside the metro, use the toilets down there. I wouldn't do or recommend that back home in Europe, but here in Tokyo public metro toilets are clean, safe and available (once you're in the metro system, mostly not accessible outside of the ticket-area). In case you need to take a dump, you might have to squat, though.
  • if you simply want to go for a beer with the lads, find an izakaya. They even like tapas with their drinks. Well, not the same kind as the Spanish have. But good as well. Don't forget to try Edamame.
  • if you want to know what it's like to live in Tokyo and wander through the city, and you understand French: i highly recommend you the book Tokyo sanpo by French graphic artist Florent Chavouet.
  • go left. I mean, they drive on the left side, but you should also tend to go on the left side while walking. Like, when someone comes straight at you while walking in the street, go a bit to the left. And on stairs, stay on the left to let people pass on the other side. That's generally also true when you're inside the metro system, but there are exceptions. When down there, simply keep your eyes open for arrows on the ground or signs on the wall and you'll know on which side you should walk.
  • be sorry all the time. Really. It's ok to say "sorry", if you want to do it more Japanese say "sumimasen". No matter what happens, be sorry before, after, and during it. Or at least say so. No matter if it's your fault, someone else's fault, or there is no fault at all (out of your view of the world).
  • don't worry too much - Japan is a safe and clean place. And people are generally friendly towards foreigners, even trying to help you if you look lost and they don't speak anything but Japanese. Respect them.
So, be humble and thankful. And come prepared. And don't forget to smile and nod a lot :)

Note: so far i haven't seen much more than Tokyo and its surroundings.

Cheers.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Earthquakes (and other disasters)

From my first guidance for new students session, which i had during my first week here in Tokyo: what to do in case of an earthquake:
  1. protect yourself (0-2min)
  2. prevent fires (2-5min)
  3. secure safety of family (5-10min)
  4. cooperate with neighbours&non-Japanese friends (10min-12hrs)
  5. be prepared to survive on your own (water, food, shelter etc.) (12hrs-2weeks)
Time in () is time after the earthquake.
ad 1.: e.g. get under a table.
There are places where emergency supplies are stored in each community, but one should also prepare supplies oneself. I'm also attending a lecture called "Earthquake Engineering", quite interesting.
After one of the big quakes, it took them only three days to get electricity back, but sewage system took two weeks. Fortunately there was a river near which was used as a temporary, uhm, disposal of personal excrements facility :)

Just had a session here where my research mates introduced us to Japanese geography. Some facts:
  • Japan has 6852 islands, out of which about 400 are inhabited
  • its area is about the same as Germany, and about 1/10 of China
  • 2/3 of land is forest, 3/4 is mountain
  • "Nihon alps" are similar to European alps :)
If the earthquake introduction didn't scare you, there's more:
  • volcanic activity: lots and lots, same reason as for quakes. Saw a nice pic of gas/ash cloud coming down a mountain. >1000 degC, moving with 700 km/h. Blaster!
  • if Fuji-san explodes, Tokyo will be in deep, deep trouble...
  • floods: 98% of all Japanese cities have had more than 10 floods. In the last 10 years!
All in all, a great place to study disasters ;) and now i also understand better why disaster management is emphasized a lot in the lectures here at the civil engineering department that i am a part of now.

Japan: Interesting place, that much's for sure!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Pelicula

Hello there,

yesterday I've done something quite Japanese. And promised to blog about it ;)

Met friends of mine at Shibuya station. And they told me they would take me to pelicula because they thought after my last blog entry that might be a funny thing to do, completely Japanese. Got me curious. Especially since pelicula means movie in Spanish. So, after some strolling around we went into an establishment, how to say, unlike things we have in Austria. Very colourful and filled with strange music, or actually more a cacophony of many different machines. In the entrance area all of those were these thingies where you can control this kind of robotic arm that after putting it into some position it will drop down and grab with its three fingers. And if you're lucky it will grab some item for you. Looks like this:


But back to the actual purpose of my visit there: movie-pelicula. Those are machines mainly for schoolgirls. But as a foreigner nobody stops you from using them. You go inside a bright white box to make pictures of you. All the while having to make decisions on a big touchscreens for all kind of backgrounds with crazy environments. No idea what the difference between the different machines is, but they had around 20 of them. And at all of them there were people (girls) queueing. My friends selected one and the three of us got in after some waiting. Our Japanese teammember did the selecting, and we made a lot of funny faces for the camera.
I thought that was it, but you move on into the box next of the first, to edit the pictures. They have algorithms in place who will make your eyes ridiculously large, you know, enlarge your pupils like you were an anime character. But you can add all kind of stuff to the pictures, like stars, hearts, kana writings...

In the end you can load it to your mobile phone - if it's a Japanese one and have this kind of bluetooth they have here - and print the pics on photo paper. Here's what i got: one third of that photo paper.


Hehe, now i have a truly Japanese bookmark.

Oh, one more random Shibuya shot, with a bit more people crossing then on the last pic i posted. Still not many, though.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Tokyo (and around), 1st 24 hours

Hello there,

so, i have arrived in Japan. Some of my first impressions, quite random:
  • waiting at the gate at VIE, the usual crowd. 1st Japanese experience on board: when i was already seated in the plane, an old couple entered, with their street shoes in their hands, wearing slippers. Like when entering somebody's home. They put their shoes on again in front of me. Dunno why (peer pressure?). Fortunately there was lots of space in front of me during the flight ("fußfrei") thanks to using a good airline changing my seat last minute - when boarding - because i had asked for an aisle seat at check in (at that time all of those were full).
  • 1st Japanese experience on the ground, i.e., Narita Airport:
The buttons read something like "spray" and "stop" and at the wall there was explanatory text. English version starting with "Equipment to cleansing the buttocks with warm water". Whatever, i thought it funny at the time, after one or two days without really sleeping.
  • general impression after my first hour in Japan: everything feels very clean and well organised - not surprisingly. And friendly including customs officers. Not sure if he asked me for my major (study field) out of curiosity or to check if I'm a student for real (age!).
  • I missed one bus and had to wait one more hour to leave the airport thanks to ATM complications - but they also gave me friendly receipts for not giving me money :-P
  • waiting for the airport bus a guy came up to me, speaking only Japanese, looked at my bus ticket and took my luggage. Trusting Japanese i rightfully assumed that he was personnel for 'check-in luggage' for the bus, with number ticket and all.
  • bus into Tokyo cost more than 30 Euros, 2h10min drive to my station. I felt very much like sleeping but kept my eyes open to see everything. Felt fresh. I also felt like having a shower really soon (was going to happen) and sleeping a lot (was not happening too soon). I saw three baseball fields with people playing and watching - it was Sunday morning and the Japanese love baseball - and quite some interesting bridges. Then i got off at the wrong station (five minutes after my station) but managed to walk back to my meeting point. Already had three people asking if they could help me, some of them not speaking any English :D
  • 1st big faux pas: when entering my friend's flat, i stepped in two steps, without taking my shoes off! Realised it immediately, stepped back, took my shoes off :)
Some more random impressions from my first day, with pictures:
  • the national sport in the metro: sleeping. My first metro ride here (technically not metro), me still very tired, but not that much:

  • all restaurants have the food they offer on display, all in plastic replicas that already look delicious:

  • first local meal: raw fish. In Enoshima, at the seaside (I'm from a landlocked country, sunshine and seaside always wonderful for me!). Lots of very tiny little fish, my raw fish bowl being the one on the right - the left one is the same, just that the fish is cooked and not part of my meal. All other things belonged to my meal.

  • got off the train at "HA SE" station, haha. That means bunny/rabbit in German.

On to see a big Buddha:
Great Buddha - Daibutsu in Japanese - near Kamakura. Not the biggest Buddha statue I've seen in Asia, but the most impressive: still huge, and: almost 900 years old!!!
  • my first dinner in Japan: small and quite original BBQ place. Raw meat might look unusual for your usual European, but was really yummy! After bbq-ing it, of course.
That's the enthusiastic owner of the place. She loves Gaijin and made us teach her some words in our mother tongues (French and German) and wrote it down to remember it.
During our meal we even got a free beer, "because the barrel was about to end anyways". That's quite unusual, I've been told, with one "Krügerl" costing more than five Euros. Not that i needed more sleep encouragement at that moment, jet-lag and all. But the Sapporo from the tap was good :)

  • first morning, in the metro: luckily i could avoid the rush hour by one hour, carrying my luggage and all. Metro was just "pretty full" according to Austrian standards. Right next to me was this guy:
Drawing caricatures off other passengers with a pen. For his own enjoyment. After a couple of stations he started talking to me in perfect English, asking if i was travelling (because of the luggage). Since i had shown interest in his drawings he took out another notebook, showing me how he coloured his drawings later on. Nice!
  • after the cartoonist had left i noticed a young guy next to me reading a book. Training my Katakana reading i read the author's name: To-MaSu BeRuNHaRuTo. Holy shit! My first morning metro ride in Tokyo, and a guy next to me reads a Japanese translation of my favourite Austrian author: Thomas Bernhard! After realising this i saw that next to the Japanese title it said "Alte Meister" in small type. Hehe. Couldn't help but telling the guy that i was also Austrian like the author of his book :)
  • during my first full day here i passed through Shibuya crossing about five times.There are better pics and videos off people walking all over the place after the cars stop. Google it or watch a recent movie playing in Tokyo :)
  • on my way to registering:


  • 1st lunch inside Tokyo:

  • DoN KiHo-Ra (Don Quijote). A big shopping house with all things needed to start your household
including these pillows, directly next to the ones with comic motives for the kids:
(not Japan-specific, just surprised me)

  • Tommy Lee Jones is right now on every second or third drink vending machine - and there's lots of them everywhere - advertising some kind of coffee (and yes, they sell closed cans of hot coffee!)

  • yellow area in the metro is reserved for people in need. And please turn your mobile completely off there (see sign even on the handles)

  • the picture gives away that it might be chocolate banana milk, but the Katakana also reads Chyokobanana :) must be Donkey Kong's favourite brand...

  • one more food pic: I'd heard of this Japanese chocolate brand, so i had to try it:

Manufactured by the Chiroru Bakery, cf. this.

  • I also already got a commemorative brochure for the 25th birthday of Mario on my first day. Hehe. And my first Manga: my Japanese is way too poor to read it yet. I didn't buy it: these are cheaply s/w-printed, quite thick (format is almost A4!) and people (usually office folk commuting) read it on the metro. And after reading place it on top of garbage bins, so other people - like me - can pick it up. Don't know much about Manga yet, but i had already heard of the one on the cover :)

Puha, that's it for now. Thanks for reading my blog! More will follow (not from the first day, i promise).