Update: not going back to Tokyo now

Hello there,

just to give an update about my situation, for those of you who haven't heard from me through email or facebook: i am not going back to Japan from Seoul, but home to Europe.
I am very worried about the situation in Japan right now and my friends there. I hope for the best and closely follow the news.

So, in short, instead of going back to Japan on Tuesday i will go back to Europe on Wednesday. With Aeroflot through Moscow (i am no fan of Aeroflot after my flights with them in 2010, but well, they are reliable enough, nevermind the bad food and i hope even the long flight will be bearable in their seats).

Keep safe,

Cheers (?)
CGA


ps: Oh, and a side note: Seoul is a very interesting city and i enjoy my sightseeing here. More about it later.

I'm OK, not in Japan at the moment.

Hi,
today the biggest earthquake in more than 100 years hit Japan. 8.9 magnitude. More than the 1995 one and the one in the 1920ies.
Usually i don't post my current position here in the blog, but this is a good reason: i am in Seoul, South Korea, since Tuesday and will stay here till next Tuesday.
Thank you for all the concerned emails, facebook posts etc. I will answer them, right now i am trying to find out how my friends in Japan are doing and what's happening there.
The ones i reached so far are ok, all trains in Tokyo are not operating, mobile network is down (antenna masts broken etc.). A friend walked home from university, a way that usually takes one hour by train... and the Japanese were as scared as the foreigners when the earthquake hit.

Still many that i need to reach.

When the quake happened, i was sightseeing in Seoul. The whole day i couldn't find free WLAN, hadn't heard anything unusual. We only were a bit confused because a friend received two mails on his mobile from family in Europe asking if he was ok after the quake. We assumed this was about the 7.2 quake that happened the day before where we had already informed them that we're ok. Only in the evening we saw this shocking tsunami images on a tv and realised that something bigger is happening. And now i am finally online with my phone.
And watching CNN in the hostel. With some quite moronic commentators who didn't even know what timezone Japan is in. But at least they've shown the NHK videos several times, so i saw that.

I wish all the best for my friends and everyone in Japan right now.

So much so far, i will go write some emails now.

Seoul, out.

Boso-no-Mura - Samurai Posing and Tea Ceremony

Yesterday i went on a bus tour organised by the foreign student office of the civil engineers at Todai. Very nice. They took us to Bosa-no-Mura in Chiba prefecture, a kind of open-air museum of traditional Japanese houses. Less reading, more pictures:

Traditional merchant street. The guys in kimonos are actors - they were shooting an episode of a Japanese serial that'll be aired sometime in April.

Traditional roof, made from rice plants.
The tiles look like metal but are made from clay just like traditional red ones in Europe.

Raincoats at the local farm,
also made from rice plant.

Guess what kind of shop that is: a woodwork factory, NOT a shoe shop :-)

 After looking around a bit we proceeded to the house of a samurai. They had the right to be a bit more separate, having their own hedge around their houses. There we started the first tourist activity of the day: dressing up in traditional samurai armour and kimono. Here we go, guess what follows are classic Japanese tourist pics.

Instructions on how to dress up as a samurai. Back in the days these guys were dressing up all alone.
I also got this instruction sheet in Japanese...

The lady helping everyone into the different parts of samurai gear.
Looked liky mummy dressing up her warrior boys :D

Receiving my katana and instructions on how to use it.

The result: two samurai bodyguards for a beautiful lady in kimono.

Profile pic-to-be.
Well, a bit too serious.

A little less serious.
"Ain't it funny, now i will cut all your heads of with one swift cut."

We tried to get them to look like fearsome warriors, didn't work.
And one of them was smiling permanently :-)

Also funny:
Everyone in costume became a living statue for tourists to take pics with.

We also had a warrior queen who made those two stop fighting.
The power of intimidation ;-)

Mixed pic: people from three different continents.

So, that was fun. But the day was not over yet, we just reached lunchtime. I guess getting up early really pays off!

Yummy tempura lunch.
Everything except the fried shrimp is vegetables.

Check: doesn't smell like Sakura yet...
we had wonderful sunny but very windy and bit cold weather.
(and that's actually no cherry tree, i think)

After lunch we went to a tea ceremony - for tourists. Was interesting to see. Follow the link for details. The ceremony takes place in a separate house, in a room that has tatami mats on the floor and some seasonal flower arrangement and other things in the corner. Who sits where is all an important part of the ritual. Some pics:

Ritually taking the shoes off and putting them in line when entering.

One of the two tea masters closing the door after everyone's in.

If you're an old ojiisan like myself and cannot sit on your knees,
they can provide you with a little stool and table.

First thing we got was seasonal candy.
This is spring candy made from mostly sugar and some part of rice.

Preparing the tea from powder with that bamboo-brush-thingie.
I was fortunate and sat next to the tea masters, got a close look.

This is how you use it.

The tools: hot water pot with bamboo ladle, it's lid with hanky to grab it, tea bowl,
bamboo-brush-thingie, can with green tea powder and the tool to take tea out of it.

Receiving tea, one by one. You should drink the whole cup in three sips.

After we all finished our tea, we walked out of the room, one by one, in the same order as when entering (first-in, first-out). Taking care not to step on the black lines between the tatami mats and using exactly three or six steps for each mat, depending on if you move along the short or long side.
So, tea ceremony, i can check that off my list ;-)

I'll leave you with two more pics of this wonderful day. Thanks to everyone who made this possible!

Nevermind the cold weather: there was soy ice cream!
Kampai!

One of the two main organisers of the Association of European Students at Todai for Hongo Mayfestival 2011 (the biggest student festival in Japan!), practising for the three crazy days in May when he'll be running around, carrying a lot of stuff :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shooting cars

Another quick entry: you know what a driving range is? You know, those places where you can rent a golf club and a bucket full of golfballs and hit away at your pleasure. I have never played golf - except for miniature golf ;-) - and tried that driving range thing only once, because i lived next to one in China and had a flatmate who knew how to golf. Anyways. Have you ever thought about where to build a driving range in a cramped city like Tokyo? Well, me neither, but last night i passed by one:

 So there you have it. Above a parking lot. Not the most obvious choice, i think. I wouldn't have thought of golfballs above cars as the first choice. But well, you know, space is scarce around here..

Another thing i passed by:

One of the ubiquitous vending machines that I've already mentioned. Just posting it here because of the name: don't know about you, but i don't want to drink something called 'sweat' :D

Fishmilk

Before i moved to Japan someone in Austria told met that their idea was to get oneself a treat everyday to make life in Japan even nicer. Well, i don't strictly adhere to this, but every now and then i get myself something. Mostly out of curiosity, to try new products that don't exist elsewhere but Japan.

So, the fish milk was one of this things. If you think combining fish and milk is a really, really bad idea, hold your horses: there's no actual fish involved, as far as i know. Maybe a picture will help:

Just before yummy in the sun.

 If you've been to Japan, you might recognise this fish as Taiyaki. A waffle-like cake in the form of fish. Most commonly filled with delicious anko. So this is nothing else than sweet milk with Taiyaki taste. It really tastes like those waffle-things filled with anko. Yummy, Japan.

If you're wondering where i enjoyed this: i drank it in front of Yasuda Auditorium at Hongo campus. Just after lunch. In the sun, with snowmen around me because of the snowfall during the night before - but they were already melting away in the sunshine.

Happy fishmilk ad in the local COOP shop.

Cheers.

書道 (calligraphy)

The Japanese language class of my first semester here at Todai ended this week. But we already had the final exam in the week before. The rest of the course our nice teachers did several activities with us. That included pronounciation training and reading comprehension, but also one class about the many cultural festivals that exists in Japan. And, to come to the point of this blog entry, one session of Japanese calligraphy or shodō (that is also how you read the two kanji in the blog's title. The dō is the same as e.g. in Judō).

It started with the teacher giving us a presentation about the different styles of calligraphy. She told us about three of them each one more difficult to do. Interestingly, the most advanced one is the most unreadable one and looks more like well, someone writing very fast and not caring so much about the readability of the text. Uhm, writing letters unreadable, looks like i can do that...

Anyways. We had already studied our first 110 kanji during our course, nevertheless the teacher had some examples of 'nice' kanji at the end of her presentation. So each one of us picked two that would make some kind of sense and started practising. To know what we're aiming for, our teacher wrote us a sample sheet of our kanji with red ink (actually, it was more orange than red) and we were copying that. Here's my 'master copy':

先生の書道

The two big kanji mean something like 'happiness' and 'travel'. Originally i wanted to write 'happy traveller' but that would've been too many kanji - more than two - and there was only space for two kanji on these sheet. So, 'happy travel' it was. Oh, and i usually don't write my name here in this blog, but if you can read it - the four small kanji on the left - well, good for you ;-)
Some more pics:

Practising. Next to me is a Nepalese friend of mine.

My final product compared to the teacher's one on the left.
Some Japanese friends told me that my name is 'no Japanese', well, i guess i managed to achieve the 'unreadable' Kanji style ;-)

 

 

Expert at work - a Chinese classmate, obviously knowing more about calligraphy

All of us incl.our teacher.

In the last pic you can see only about half of my language class. Most people didn't show up during the last two weeks because of exams etc. and the language class not being compulsory. Still, you can see six different nationalities in that pic. Hehe.

Well, that was fun :-)

Cheers.

Gib mir Deinen Saft

What's the Austrian sauce? Does this question make any sense to you? And what would you answer if "we don't have one sauce that we put on everything" doesn't count as an answer?

Another little anecdote from my two weeks of family home stay in Hokkaido:
On the third or fourth evening my host family asked me to cook something Austrian for dinner. I cooked Wiener Schnitzel and Kaiserschmarrn for them. So far, so good. A novelty for me was eating Schnitzel with chopsticks - i made small, bite-sized Schnitzel to make that feasible (also easier to fry ;-)). I explained them that we would not do that, but use knife and fork to eat the Schnitzel. They told me well, they just love to use their hashi because they are so practical. Uuuhm, i don't think that'd be so practical if the food wasn't pre-cut/came in bite-sized pieces. Anyways. They liked the Schnitzel and the Kaiserschmarrn. Yummy, yummy.
I helped them cook dinner every evening. Besides that one Austrian evening and one time Spanish paella - they had visited Spain and liked that - we always cooked something Japanese, and almost every day something different. Delicious, two yummy weeks for me :D
But back to the sauce. The day after Austrian evening we used soy sauce while cooking. On that occasion they asked me what the Austrian sauce was. At first i wasn't sure what they meant, but then they explained me well, they can use soy sauce to put on everything and also do that with most dishes. So they wanted to know the Austrian equivalent of that. I told them that we don't have the one sauce that we can/do put on everything. They did not except that as an answer... hmmm, i could not tell them anything else. After consulting each other they agreed that it must be lemon. Mainly because on the night before, i had also bought lemons and explained them that you squeeze lemon slices over your Schnitzel. They seemed content with the answer they found and i left them in their belief.
Cultural differences...

Mahlzeit, everyone!

Cheers
CGA

ps: nevermind if you don't understand the title of this blog entry. It's from an old German song - by 'old' i mean something like 20 years old.

Gruppenduschen

#sorry, German blog entry. Google "Onsen" to find similar information all over the web :-P

So, der Jänner vergeht wie im Fluge. Gibt wie immer noch einiges, worüber ich vorhabe zu bloggen, aber man kommt ja zu nix. Naja, fast nix :)

Jedenfalls, in meinen gut zwei Wochen auf Hokkaido, also ganz im Norden Japans, war ich auch das erste Mal in einem Onsen. Also ein öffentlichtes Bad, das von einer natürlichen heißen Quelle gespeist wird. Über die Prozeduren dort findet man im Internet schon genug. Insofern werd ich das nicht im Detail beschreiben, oder was man alles falsch machen kann.

Naja, war wie erwartet. Reingehen, Damen-/Herrenbereich getrennt, also ist man(n) dann nachm Ausziehen in einem großen Raum mit anderen nackerten Herren. Es wird im sitzen nebeneinander geduscht, d.h. abduschen, manisch mit Seife einschrubben, abspülen, wenn geht möglichst oft wiederholen. Wer will auch gleich rasieren, also, den Bart. Und dann setzt man sich ins heiße Becken gleich neben der Duschwand, mit dem kleinen Handtuch stylisch aufn Schädel gelegt, und sitz im heißen Wasser, solange man will. Naja, eh ned ewig, die Japaner machen so Sachen wohl wie vieles andere einfach recht schnell (Stichwort Aussichtspunkt: "Da sind wir. Also, Photo machen. Jetzt fahrmer noch kurz zum Souvenirshop, und dann wieder eineinhalb Stunden nachhause." und wenn man antworten will, sind sie schon Richtung Auto unterwegs :D).

Das ganze hatte was von Gruppenduschen. Ned so mit Zwängen/Zeitdruck wie beim Bundesheer, aber halt gemeinschaftliches Duschen - und dann im heißen 'Heilwasser' sitzen. Noja. Wems gefällt. Ob das jetzt so super gesund ist, weiß ich nicht, also, ob es so großartige gesundheitliche Vorteile bringt. Jetzt im Winter vielleicht, wie halt ein heißes Bad.

Muß noch dazu sagen, daß ich jetzt nicht im Super-über-drüber Onsen war. Meine Host Family hat mir gesagt, das ist halt schon ein älteres, deshalb kann man leider nicht ins Freie, das hätte ich nett gefunden, heißes Becken und rundherum Schnee. So wars halt mehr 70er Jahre Charme, die Kacheln an der Wand und so. Dafür können wahrscheinlich nicht allzu viele Leute sagen, daß sie schon in Setose im Onsen waren...
Setose war das nette Kuhdorf, wortwörtlich, in dem ich über Neujahr die gut zwei Wochen untergekommen bin. Ist so klein, daß es nicht einmal eine eigene Wikipedia-Seite hat, auf Englisch, nur die eine Bahnhaltestelle, siehe hier. Außer der Haltestelle - "Bahnhof" - gibts da noch gut fünf Verkaufsautomaten für Getränke wie überall in Japan und ein Postamt. Greisler haben sie keinen, zum Einkaufen fahren sie mit dem Auto die zwölf Kilometer nach Engaru.

So long,

Cheers
CGA

Winter holidays report in Japanese - my trip to glue(?) :)

First of all:
あけましておめでとうございます！
In other words, i wish you all a very happy new year and all the best for 2011.

I had to write a report - three, actually - about my two-weeks-long stay in Hokkaido. In Japanese. So just for the fun of it, i thought I'd share this report with all of you. Here we go:

__________________________________________________

わたしのりょこう

ウインターホームステイプログラム

ほっかいどう

２０１０ー２０１１

わたしはほっかいどうにりょこうしました。オホーツクにひこうきでいきました。

オホーツクのふゆはおもしろいです。ふうけいはいんしょうてきです。ゆきはすきです。しろい山とはたけがあります。とてもきれいです。

オーストリアにうみがありませんからほっかいどのうみはすきです。

ほっかいどにホームステイをしました。わたしのホストファミリーはとてもしんせつです。いっしょにたくさんのことをしました：

ゆきかきをしました。さろまことびほろとうげともんべつとえんがるへいきました。とうげいはたのしかたです：じぶんのカップをつくりました。せとせのおんせんにいきました：あつかったでした。さわやかなさんぽをしました。

がんたんにせとせのじんじゃへいきました。まるせっぷでしょどうをしました。

またいっしょになまらおいしいたべものをつくりました。まいにち日本のあさごはんはみそしるとごはんたべました（ときどきヨーグルト）。

それとよるは：ヤキニク、おすし、たこやき、ローストビーフ、オーストリアのりょうり、かに（なまらうまい！！！）、かき、ほたてがい、そば、やきとり、スペインのPaella、しろいこいびと、ケーキとわたがしをたべました。あとわたしはもちつきをしました!とてもおもしろかたです。

わたしのふゆやすみはたのしかたです。

__________________________________________________

And since a text in Japanese is not much use for most of you, let's try something fun: here's the Google translation of the above text:

__________________________________________________

My Trip to glue

Uintahomusuteipuroguramu

What Beihai

ー 2011 2010


I will do the quantitative Yokoushimashita Beihai. Hi I went on the Okhotsk Kouki.

It is interesting winter of Okhotsk. Silicon is becoming like impression. I like the snow. There are mountains and bamboo Shiroi. Very beautiful.

Beihai is not a sea which Austria is like a sea.

Beihai etc. for a homestay. My host family is very Setsu Shin. Together with a lot of things:

Oysters with snow. Saro びほろとうげともんべつとえんがるへいきました truth. Thank Ihata How to Ge is: I made a cup jackpot. We went to the hot springs of Tose: Could ni atsukatta. For a refreshing walk.

Tose went to the shrine of bogus cancer tan. Pudeshodouwoshimashita whole stoneware.


ょになまらおいしいたべものをつくりました s together again. Asami Japanese rice every day I ate miso soup and rice (sometimes yogurt.)

It says that: Yakiniku, sushi, Takoyaki, roast beef, cooking, Austria, crab (Namaraumai !!!), oysters, scallop challenging, soba, yakitori, Spanish Paella, Shiroi Bito Come, then ate the cake Towata . Then I did a rice cake! is pretty interesting how.


The loom is how I Huyuno Yasumi.

__________________________________________________

That sure doesn't make a lot of sense. But it was funny to read, thank you, Google! I admit that my Japanese text is not very sophisticated or special to read, but this English translation has hardly anything to do with its content. My favourite of the above: "the shrine of bogus cancer tan" - i just wrote "On New Year's Day i went to the Shrine of Setose" in that sentence. I guess it's a bit unfair to the translation algorithms that i hardly use any Kanji yet. That might make it harder to recognize where words are starting and ending, since you don't use blanks between words in Japanese. But still.

Hehe.

If bored, try some scallop challenging!

Okhotsk

A Russian name, but in Japan: Okhotsk. That's where i am right now, a region in the north of Hokkaido, in the very north of Japan.

Basically a rural area, meaning small towns, all spread out in a snowy landscape. Enjoying yummy food and improving  my Japanese, staying with a local family.

I am writing this from my mobile phone, attaching some photos. Hope they turn out allright.
Main reason to write this is to wish you all:
よいをとしお！
(once again, that'd mean "Guten Rutsch!" in German)

I guess i will be in the new year hours before most of you, hehe.
(^-^)
Cheers!

-sent from my Android

Ma chi me l'ha fatto fare? BEST
http://www.BESTvienna.at

Seasonal greetings

Yeah, it's that time of the year again. I know it's not a popular thing to say, but i am no fan of it. Anyways.

Funnily enough, x-mas is not a family celebration for the Japanese. You know, they have no Christian background like people e.g. in Europe, they just took this opportunity to celebrate because they liked it and adapted it in their way. Which means that x-mas here is more something for couples, a time when you go for a fancy dinner in a restaurant with your girl-/boyfriend. X-mas spirit in tha house.

A nice video, classic, in German, about "Weihnachten":



And a picture from today's lunch in Todai's cafeteria:

Looked yummy behind the display window. When i bought the ticket to get this Ramen the friendly lady behind the window was a little worried and made sure that i really want this "kurisumasu ramen" (get it?) because it is with milk.
Was actually quite tasty! And it did not remind me of any kurisumasu-taste i knew so far :)

So, happy celebrations, everyone!
よいおとしを！
(that'd be "Guten Rutsch!" in German)

I'll be in Hokkaido, far up in the north end of Japan, for the next two weeks, so, see you next year (またらいねん！）!

No theatre

See what I've done there? The title is a slight hint that I am not the biggest fan of theatre (yup, no typo, that's British English). Nevertheless, you know, moving to other countries for me is also about getting to know the culture of those. Plus, they offered traditional Japanese theatre shows for free for students, so I've already been to two shows here. Hah, if you thought I'll only blog about shopping here, let me prove you wrong ;-) even though shopping is a very important activity for young Japanese people.

So, here we go. The first theatre show was called "Jiuta-mae" and it was actually traditional Japanese dance. Two musicians playing on traditional instruments, and once dancer. At a time. All in all there were about five different dancers. In full make-up, meaning that their faces were completely white, special hairdo, and what i guess are kimonos. Gracefully doing their thing, i.e., dancing. Here are some blurry pics:


As you can see - a t least a bit - it's a wooden stage, with a wooden roof. The whole thing built inside a bigger hall. I imagine that in 'the old days' these kind of stage were built outdoors, in villages, and people sat under the sky, kinda open-air.

The stage looked the same for the second show that i saw in a different place: Noh theatre. For hundreds of years, this traditional form of Japanese drama has been performed by male actors. Interestingly enough, there were female actors in this one. It was the show of the Todai theatre group and it took place here. I was happy to see that even with this very, very traditional form of theatre, nowadays both women and men can play it.

Anyway. It reminded me of classic Greek theatre - choir and all. Quite similar setting, choir in the back and few actors in front. Well, plus some musicians.
And unlike the first one, this was a full play, plot and all. It was the classic Atsumori. Fortunately they provided the text, in both Japanese and English. We got that in my language course, the day before. One of my teachers told me that sometimes even she reads the English text, since the Japanese is a bit old-school and can be hard to understand even for native speakers. And another teacher told me that she doesn't like to go to Noh because it makes her fall asleep :D sweet.
Some pics:

One of the first scenes. Many actors, choir in the back, drummers/singers on the left.

Atsumori's ghost doing his thing with a sword. Wearing a mask since he appeared in his ghost form.

To give you a better idea of the atmosphere, here's a video:

Especially note the two guys on the left. Doing the "oooh/wooh/ooih" thing, followed by a clap on their wooden drum. They did that during the whole show.


The luxury 'seats' in the loges. Actually Tatami mats with some pillows. I wouldn't be able to sit comfortably like that, so i would not pay more for these seats...

The nice group of people from my department who were in the theatre with me.

After the theatre i went to a vernissage where i knew one of the artists. So i had a cultural Saturday last week, you might say :)

Cinema

Hello there,

if you know me well, you know that i love going to the cinema. A week ago, i went to the cinema the first time here in Japan. Well, no big surprises here. It basically looked like any "megaplex" cinema I've seen so far. Went to see the most recent Harry Potter movie - was as expected, looking good because there is a lot of money put into the special effects, but the plot still seems quite randomly stuck together at many moments. Anyways.
Two things worth mentioning about cinema in Japan:

• it's damn expensive. More than 16 Euros for a regular ticket (1800 Yen), two Euros more for 3D movies
• funny: all people sat through the whole credits. That has never ever happened to me in Europe. Here they don't even turn the lights on as long as the movie credits are still running. And everyone was still there when the credits ended.

Even though it's so damn expensive, i plan to go again this week to see Tron 2.0. A movie I've been waiting for, the trailers looked pretty damn cool (didn't watch the last one, to not see too much already). And it seems i am lucky: the movie was released last Friday here in Japan. Thought it'd be a worldwide same-day release, but now i saw that people in Austria will have to wait until the end of January. Well, well. Here's a pic of the posters that you can find down in the metro right now:


Nice, huh? The Dude, geeking it out.
Keep watching.

Vending machine record

As already mentioned: here in Japan they have vending machines for drinks (water, softdrinks, icetea, coffee hot and cold) at almost every corner. Lots of them. But what i saw last weekend's a new record:

That's 15 machines next to each other! If you count only 14: the 15th is not visible because it was a little thinner and is covered by the one you see on the left. Anyways, that was the best shot i could get.
I mean, fifteen! It is very usual that two to five of these vending machines stand next to each other in one place, but 15's a bit extreme. After all, at least every third machine is selling the same kind of drink. Oh, and just for completeness: yes, some of them are also selling icecream.
Found this accumulation of vending machines a bit outside of Tokyo, in a street where lots and lots of tourist are walking by. Near a shrine. A week before i was there a certain Obama (this one, not that) had visited that shrine which led to numerous blocked roads etc. for the local population. Aw, celebrities. Luckily, when i was there, everything was accessible again. Just regular tourists around me :)

And now, two random pics from an architectural city tour i did today:


Cheers!