Top 11 Things I Miss About Japan

Having been away from Japan for nearly six months now, I've found myself really missing it lately and can't wait till I can go back next year.  Then I got to thinking...what is it that I actually miss?  Because, like anywhere, including Canada, there's things I love and hate....so I came up with this list. Some are things you don't even realize you'll miss until you don't have them anymore ( like my students, Engrish, and toilets that clean your butt!)

1. Shinkansen - by far the thing I probably loved the most was the shinkansen.  How can you not?  It's fast, clean, punctual, spacious, futuristic, and uber convenient, dropping you and picking you up in the city centre, unlike flying.  I'm an advocate for having bullet trains in every country of the world, even though other bullet trains I've ridden in different countries aren't nearly as awesome.  I lived in Japan nearly a year before I took the shink...I don't know why....part of it was definitely the fact that a night bus to Kyoto is cheaper, but it made me really nervous for some crazy reason...the same reason perhaps that I lived in the UK a year before hitting up London because it made me nervous (but I had no issue with Rome, Prague, Istanbul, Paris, or Athens?).  Either way, after that first ride in style up to Nagoya, I haven't looked back...it's one of the few expensive comforts I allow myself when travelling in Japan and my God is it worth it!

2. Purikura - this was again another thing I didn't do for a long time, but after awhile, every newbie I'd show around town or everyone who came to visit, got dragged into one of these booths.  Who doesn't want to be airbrushed, have the perfect amount of blush, creepily huge eyes with rainbow falsies, and accessorize themselves to look like a whorish tranny bunny?  Just don't wear green or you'll be one with the background.

3. Karaoke - I'm the first person to admit I have an absolutely horrid voice.  And a lot of the time I go to karaoke I don't sing a whole lot (there's much better singers out there, don't want to steal their thunder!) but it's nice to just sit back and relax and watch everyone have at 'er.  The original karaoke in Japan is so much better than it is in Canada because you just rent your own little room with your friends, rather than stand in a bar full of strangers!  I don't know about you, but it takes me awhile to get comfortable enough with someone to hold a conversation, never mind sing!  That being said, I have graduated from having to be incredibly drunk to sing anything to being able to sing Barbie Girl by Aqua sober with my boss on a Monday at noon.

4. Konbinis - I don't live in the urban part of Japan, at least by Japanese standards.  In fact, when I'm travelling out of my prefecture and tell Japanese people where I live, the response is always the same: laughter and Why?? Why??? My first apartment in Japan had a vending machine literally at the bottom of the stairs and when I moved I was devastated I had to walk ACROSS THE STREET to the nearest one.  (Also note: THE VENDING MACHINES GET CHANGED IN THE FALL SO SOME DRINKS ARE HOT IN THE WINTER). There was another one around back of the apartment and 3 konbinis (convenience stores) practically within arms reach.  And this is is in the inaka (countryside).  Now, convenience stores in Japan truly put to shame those in any other country.  You can do anything you want: fax, copy, buy decent semi-nutritious food, heat up your food, buy booze, buy concert tickets, tickets to sporting events, pay bills, use the ATM (7-11 banks even allow you to transfer money home through the ATM), buy bus tickets, drop off or pick up luggage from the airport, send or pick up parcels, buy stamps, print digital photos, use the toilet, some have free Wi-Fi (surprisingly uncommon in Japan), buy dish detergent at 3am.  The list is literally endless.  However, I try to avoid my local 7-11 at certain times of the night when the annoying yankee kids (the wannabe yakuza teenage boys with rhinestone Hello Kitty track suits and matching sandals) have nothing better to do than hang out outside 7-11.  This video does an excellent job of summing up both the awesomeness of konbinis and life in the inaka for teenagers (sorry it's only in Japanese, but still super catchy)

5. Kawaii-ness - No other country in the world probably loves cute things as much as Japan.  After being in Japan a year and taking a short trip to Korea, I wasn't expecting to notice the lack of cuteness quite so much.  Nearly every person in Japan, regardless of age or sex, including foreigners, has at least one favourite character.  My first was the stereotypical Hello Kitty.  I didn't even realize I loved her - my first set of chopsticks my second day in Tokyo were Hello Kitty and my first Halloween in Japan I made a zombie Hello Kitty papier mache costume.  Next came Choruru (my prefectures mascot with green mountains for hair) and Nameko (a phallic looking mushroom which is just plain wrong for little girls to be obsessed with - yes, I said it).  In Japan, it's perfectly acceptable for a 30 year old woman in a business suit to be riding the subway and pull out her iPhone rhinestone studded Hello Kitty case, complete with at least 5 keitai charms (these are yet another thing I miss...no one decorates their phone enough here!).  It's so hard coming back to Canada and having no one get as excited about my cute things as I do. (or not doing the peace sign in photos!)

Okonomiyaki

6. Tabemono -  When most people outside Japan think of Japanese food, they think of sushi. However, because of my allergies to shellfish and some other fish, I never actually ate sushi in the two plus years I was in Japan (well not sushi proper, but I ate non-fish sushi).  But there's so many other amazing foods, my favourite being okonomiyaki, meaning 'whatever you like'.  It's basically a savoury pancake with an amazing sauce, usually with a lot of cabbage, and I like mine with pork, mochi (pounded rice cakes), and cheese.  Another standard, eaten almost every day are onigiri (rice balls).  They're good either just plain, or with a filling inside, one of my favourite fillings being umeboshi (pickled plum) or kombu (a type of seaweed).  There's an awesome restaurant near where I live with HUGE onigiri with 3 fillings in each (*note: if you ever find yourself in Yamaguchi-ken, hit up Sanzoku!).  The list of awesome Japanese food goes on and on, but I'll finish with one more: yakisoba, a staple food at festivals of fried soba noodles, veggies, pork, and a yummy sauce.  Then theres udon, ramen, nabe, tonkatsu, shabu shabu, yakiniku...and don't even get me started on all the amazing mochi and anko sweet treats or the booze or flavoured Kit Kats!  And while we're on the topic food, I'm just going to quickly throw in how amazing it is that there's a button at your restaurant table to ring the waitress/waiter whenever you need something (I HATE yelling 'SUMIMASEN!'...no one ever hears me!)

7. Kotatsu - Winter hasn't hit yet in Canada, and although we have central heating and insulated houses, I know I'll be missing my kotatsu.  I wrote a blog last year on how to survive winter in Japan, so I won't go into much detail here, but there's more to a kotatsu than just being an amazing heated table with a fleecy blanket keeping it all in. It's a place to socialize, make nabe, eat Christmas dinner and watch the Grinch and pass out for a whole afternoon after surviving an overnight ferry from Korea (WARNING: You're NOT supposed to sleep under them)

Celebrities to the locals at hanami!

8. Being special - OK, this sounds a bit narcissistic, but let's face it: all travellers love being the center of attention, perhaps that's part of the reason we like to travel? But especially in a country like Japan, where the population is largely homogenous, and especially if you have blonde hair, green eyes, and more than a flat chest, you're basically an instant celebrity.  Although I still have yet to feel completely comfortable in Japan (I'm always going to be considered a giant and I still despise the little old obaa-chans peering into my shopping basket to see what gaijins eat), but I have learned to let it run off my back...I'm still dealing with the occasional blatant racism, but I think that's something one can never truly feel comfortable with...

9. Cleanliness - Pretty much the first thing I noticed when I got to Tokyo was how clean it was.  It's one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, metropolitan areas in the world and yet you would probably literally have to search high and low for a piece of litter anywhere.  When I first got to Japan, I was a smoker and I was walking down the streets of Tokyo smoking, wondering why no one else was and thinking 'Wow, they really are so healthy!'  And then I looked down and saw a sign literally painted onto the side walk saying no smoking while walking and to use the designated areas for smokers on nearly every street corner.  Now this is nice because it keeps it clean (there's no butts ANYWHERE), but I was surprised that in a busy Japanese world, they didn't walk and smoke (or eat or drink or often even talk on their phone)...way to lose time by not multi-tasking!

10. Friendliness and Politeness - This has been a bit of a double edged sword for me, because I don't ever feel like anyone is being truly sincere.  So in a way it's nice to come back to a country where people show their feelings and say what they're thinking, but at other times it drives me insane.  Both my bosses in Japan told me I'm Japanese in this respect, because it's hard to see how I feel about something, so I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing (if you want to read a bit more on this subject, google 'honne and tatemae or this cartoon describes it pretty well in a nutshell).  My second day in Japan I was looking for the Working Holiday Office in Tokyo (which promised to assist me in job hunting, finding an apartment, setting up a bank account, etc.) and I couldn't find it so the woman in the post office I asked literally walked down the street with me about two blocks to take me right to it - turns out it no longer existed and so my plans for starting life in a new country were screwed but that's beside the point.  That would NEVER happen here.  Nor would two 20 year olds working in a 7-11 photo copy a map and spend ten minutes comparing it their smart phones and explaining where we should go because we didn't have a smart phone or GPS.  That shit don't happen in Canada, no matter how nice we think we are.

11. Hyaku yen Shops - 100 yen shops are basically like dollar stores here in North America or the pound shops in the UK with one vital difference: they're awesome.  Of course there's the usual crap you expect for so cheap but then there's the actual decent quality stuff that's amazing.  I've got some really cute dishes there, cheap spices, onigiri molds, nori stamps for putting kawaii faces on my onigiri, all my shodo supplies before I committed and invested in the good stuff...the list goes on and on.  And for someone like me who had to furnish their apartment from scratch, unlike a lot of foreigners I know, this place (Daiso in particular), literally saved my bank account.  There are even 100 yen grocery stores.  Also on my favourite stores list that i MUST mention is Tokyu Hands, but nowhere near as cheap!

And there you have it!  I could go on and on the more I think about it.  Let me know if I missed anything!

Sanzoku Onigiri!

The Dying Wish Tour - Pretty Overload, You May Malfunction

A blog entry is long overdue, but alas, I have a relatively good explanation this time!  Since April I've had to take an unexpected, unwelcome, temporary hiatus from living abroad (explanation in another entry to follow) and since this is a travelling/living abroad blog, I haven't had much to write about...until now!

In July, I had the pleasure of travelling around my own country (CANADA!) for two weeks...this seems like a long time but considering the size of the country I managed to see maybe .01% of the actual land mass.  This is pretty exciting for me because although I have lived in 7 different countries on 4 continents, the most I've seen of Canada has been the inside of airports and the wheat fields of my own province, and I must say it was spec-fucking-tacular (pardon the French).  Seriously though, Canada is pretty amazingly jaw droppingly beautiful....even though I do say that about every country I've been.  I think Japan, being so different, has really made me appreciate Canada more than anywhere else I've lived.  Japan is beautiful of course...there's nothing quite like seeing the bamboo covered mountains swaying in the wind, the delicate cherry blossoms falling to the ground at the end of their short existence, a big, fat, greedy koi begging for food from a clear temple pond, your first Shinkansen ride, the crazy neon-ness of Akihabara, the sky reflected in a freshly planted rice paddy, or that first time you see a maiko-san shuffling through the ancient streets of Kyoto....the list goes on and on. Every time I've come back from somewhere, I couldn't wait to move on.  But this time, the wide open spaces, the uncrowded cities, the people and how REAL they are (anyone who's lived in Japan knows what I'm talking about), and just the independence of knowing what's going on and being able to do anything and everything myself was a giant relief and, even though the circumstances haven't been ideal, I've been happy to be back.

Anyways...Rockies...I started by taking a 10 hour bus to meet my friend in Edmonton.  Public transportation in Canada is HORRIBLE....this drive should have taken 5 hours at the absolute most...but hey when you're unemployed, disabled, and a temporary citizen, there's no point in buying a vehicle.  The bus arrived more than an hour late as well.  After that my friend picked me up and we drove another 2 hours to his brothers to pick up his camper and stay for the night.

Day 2 we drove from Plamondon, AB. to Jasper, AB. (total of about six hours driving) and stayed at the Wapiti campground for two nights.  There we met with my good friend Nik and his girlfriend Pat who were visiting from Switzerland...awesome timing!  Nik and I met ten years ago in Australia, travelled together a bit there, I've been to see him in Switzerland at least 4 times I remember (there's usually a lot of snuff and booze involved so it could have been more), met in Munich for Oktoberfest once, met in London for a night of drunkeness once and he also lived in Canada awhile so we've met up here at least 3 times I remember.  Nik's a lot like me in that he gets antsy being anywhere and cannot make a travel plan so we've been incredibly lucky we've managed to see each other as much as we could over the years; this time was probably the longest stretch we've gone not seeing each other...almost 4 years!  While in Jasper, we wandered around the town, went to the top of Whistlers Mountain, saw some wildlife, went for a little walk, made smores, drank, and did a lot of snuff.

After a few days in Jasper, we parted ways and moved on to Kamloops for a night...not much to say here, stayed at Knutsford Campground (actually an RV park). I had no idea Canada had such a desert-y looking landscape.  It was mega hot and I loved it, but Kamloops itself did not leave much of an impression on me.  After a night there we took Highway 99 to Squamish and it was absolutely gorgeous, although not the greatest road for pulling a camper on - narrow and windy - some places even had one lane wooden bridges.

Once we arrived in Squamish, we found a campsite at Klahanie
Campground and spent at least a good hour pulling into the site, but it was worth it because we were there five nights....and by there I mean our belongings were, but we weren't a whole lot....the campsite was nice, we had a view of a waterfall and some of the others had an ocean view.  We used this as our base for the next few days as it was only about 45 minutes to either Vancouver or Whistler from there.  Spent an evening in Whistler having some yummy sushi and drinks.  Our first day we went into the city and met a friend of mine who took us to Granville Island, which on its own I was fairly unimpressed with but the salmon burger I had there was pretty good!  Next on to China Town which was closed - but I did manage to find some Japanese food in the supermarket I've been missing!  We spent a day in North Vancouver on the Capilano Suspension Bridge and treetop walk and hit up the Brittania Mining Museum.

We also spent a day in Richmond and went on a whale watching tour.  It lasted pretty late (we went on the afternoon one) because we had to head into Washington waters in order to find the whales.  Pretty cool but again disappointing as I thought we would get a little closer to them.  Stayed in Vancouver that night and the next day hit up Stanley Park before heading back to the campground to finally relax a bit.

The next day we started making our way slowly back to the prairies and moved on to Kelowna for two nights at the Apple Orchard RV Park.  Timing was again perfect as a good friend from  Japan was visiting her family in Kelowna for a few weeks so we were able to meet up for lunch.  Afterwards we went for a tour of the Mission Hill Winery, one of the most famous in the Okanagan Valley.

Next we moved on and spent a night in Golden, B.C.  Although we didn't spend much time here or see anything, it seemed like a really nice little town and the Whispering Spruce campground we stayed at had a pretty awesome view!  We spent another night in Jasper on the way back, this time at Whistlers Campground (more than 800 sites - crazy!), stopping at the Columbia Icefields and a few other places on the way.  After leaving Jasper I spent a few more nights in Edmonton before heading back to Saskatchewan - this time the bus was only eight hours!

So all in all I was pretty happy with my first tour around Canada, but by the end of it I wished I had a penny for everytime I said something was beautiful. It was definitely a different way of travelling than I normally do, but it scratched my itchy feet for the time being.