Toilets and Technology
Don't worry--the toilet humour on this page is relatively clean!
In Japan, using the toilet is always an adventure. You don't know, no matter where you're going, what you'll end up with. Technological marvels with heated seats, built-in bidets (and blow dryers!) alternate with middle age holes in the ground; conventional (Western) toilets alternate with old washiki squat toilets, and the expensiveness or quality of the place you're visiting has little bearing on what's in the bathroom. I've visited ancient thatched-roof farmhouses that offered the latest technological wonders (in a drafty little room beneath a single naked light bulb) and fine homes that still had the equivalent of a Porta-potty.
Rate the Restroom: The Best- The beer garden at the Asahi Beer Hall, that looks like a giant golden poop on a black pedestal. Brushed aluminum everything, shiny black ultramodern fixtures, invisible automatic controls, strategic spotlights... If Darth Vader had a private restroom aboard the Death Star, this is what it would have looked like. The Worst: Random public restroom close to Hakata Canal City. Ill leave it at that. Breathing not recommended. Also, if you can, avoid the train station restrooms on major thoroughfares especially on Friday nights when the mass drinking starts. Trust me.
Not a pretty site.
The Day the Toilet Fought Back: After a long day walking around Tenjin (downtown Fukuoka), i had to unfortunately partake in the facilities at a certain hotel. Ill try my best to explain the events that took place without lowering the conversation to that of toilet humour. First off, it was a hole in the ground. A hole in the ground! Not sure how women do it but trying to squat and do one's business is somewhat uncomfortable. From there on it just got worse. I couldn't find the flush handle on the toilet tank (it was on the side rather than in front). The seat was surrounded by a console filled with little buttons, all marked in Japanese, and unable to read them, I randomly pressed one... the one marked "BIDET..."
As an aside, there are a lot of people out there who have never used or seen a bidet. A bidet is a fixture that looks like a toilet, only with a faucet turning upward. It's for personal hygiene, and much more sanitary than just wiping with paper. Anyway, the bidet has moderate popularity in Japan, and can be found in both private homes and public restrooms. I pressed the button, and with horror on my face, i watched a little nozzle emerge from beneath the seat and blast me as well as the opposite wall.
Prob the most stressful experience of my life
63 days
Price List
Conversion
R1=Y17
$1=Y100
There are certain shops called Hyaku Yen shops. Easily translated as Y100 shops/one coin shop. Here you can purchase anything in the shop for the low price of Y100. So on our quest to the one coin shop, we managed to find massive fish knives, other cutlery, towels, umbrellas, stationary and so much more.
Other prices are as follows:
Milk- Y200
2L water- Y100
Beer- at bar= Y500
-supermarket- Y175
Bus ticket- Starts at Y160 and goes to about Y500
Train ticket- Anything from Y100-Y2000
Full suit- Y30000
Mac laptop Pro- Y280000
Wine- Y1000 and up
You can also get Hyaku Yen sushi bars where all the sushi is Y100 a plate. You cant beat that anywhere in the world.
Any other prices if you interested just let me know
Soccer Tournament close to Osaka
When its not your day, its just not your day.
Have you ever noticed that in life, it always seems to be that the more excited we get for something to happen, the more disappointed we are when it turns out wrong?
Two weeks of looking for football boots that would fit- A UK10 (Japanese 28.5). 12 hours on a ferry going from Kyushu through Shikoku and onto Honshu, sleeping through snoring that could have woken up the dead, transfering five times in order to catch the right trains and then a long one hour bus ride to the island where we caught another small shuttle to where we were playing the tournament. The plus side of the ferry was that it was cheap (7000 Yen) and it had the most adorable cabins with their own TV's.
Now during this whole time, the excitement of getting onto the field again hit me just as it hit me when i was younger. Stepping out onto the field, surrounded by your team mates, ready to go to war. I was exhilirated.
My exhiliration lasted 40 minutes. A damaged ligament to the right foot is what the Japanese doctor was trying to tell me in his broken Engrish. My tournament was over. Before i knew it, i was in a bandaged splint and heading back to the grounds where i was to sit next to the field and support my teammates.
I thought to myself- Typical!
Well apart from my pathetic injury, the great FGU (Fukuoka Gaikoku-jin United) ended up placing second. A good result seen as though we only had 9 players and three of us were injured on the second day. Thanks to some good recruiting on the second day we managed to pull a full side together. I think it was partly a result of my screaming from the side lines.
All in all it was an good weekend. We got to stay in the same hotel that the England soccer worldcup team stayed in during their preparations for World cup 2002, i found out that im not invincible and we got to ride on a bullet train going at 300km/h back to Fukuoka from Osaka. Plus, some great friendships were made along the way, which is always a good thing when you're living on another planet.
46 days
Cabin on the ferry with its own little TV.
Guinness in Japanese
Hot Menu- Casual Frozen Foods
Basics for getting by...
.Good morning- Ohayo Gozaimasu .
Good Afternoon- Konnichiwa .
Good evening- Konbanwa .
How do you do?- Hajimemashite. Dozo, Yoroshiku .
Sorry/Excuse me- Sumimasen .
Thank you very much- Arigato Gozaimasu .
Thanks- Domo .
Where's the bathroom?- Otearai doko desu ka/ Otearai dochira desu ka (more polite) .
Hello when answering a telephone- Moshi Moshi .
Sorry i dont understand- Sumimasen wakarimasen .
It's hot- Atsui .
I know very little Japanese- Nihongo wa hitondo shirimasen .
Can you help me?- Taukete momoraemasu ka
Sports Day
Where i come from, sports day consists of running around a track handing little colourful batons to your team mate. Trying to jump as far as you can without getting sand in your pants, seeing who can jump the highest and of course who can throw the little pointy stick the furtherest. Well here in Japan they take sports day to a whole other level. Are these kids human?
A normal day for a student in Japan consists of getting up at 05h00 to make it to school by 08h30. They spend the day learning normal things children in High school should be learning. 15h00 hits and its time for after school activities- caligraphy classes, kendo, soccer, rugby, baseball and basketball to name a few. Seems like a normal school day for most kids right? Wrong. Most afternoon activities end around 18h00 then the children go home...yeah right. This is Japan and thats too easy. In order to get into a really good university here you have to go to evening school to further your studies. So this lasts until around 22h00. Now the kids can finally go home to do their homework and make sure they get enough sleep inorder to wake up at 05h00 the next day to start the routine all over again. If Japan had a military they would easily take over the world.
My impression when Taz invited me to sports day was 'Ah man, they are going to run around the field and thats pretty much it'. Wow, was i wrong. Seven layered pyramids, tug of war, piggy back fighting, capture the flag, martial arts dancing, traditional dancing. There was so much happening all the time that most of it has escaped my mind. I wish that we were asked to build pyramids and play tug of war. Damn boring education system.
Broken bones, dislocated shoulders, the skin scraped right off their faces. Just a normal sports day for some and yet they carry on without a winge, a whine or even a second thought. It's what their fathers did before them and their fathers before them. 'Pain is temporary, Glory is forever'.
Is all this hard work good for the children? Japan has the highest teenage suicide death rate of all first world countries and has it maybe got something to do with the pressure placed on them by their parents and schools? Maybe. But I just couldn't see it today. Every single student there, whether they were the water boy or the all conquering 'jock', loved their school and they loved being there, performing infront of the crowds.
1 month and 9 days
Is this Earth? one month on
Is this Earth?
The thought rang through my head during my first few days in Japan. Over and over: I kept asking myself if I had just moved to another foreign country or if I had been transported to another planet.
Myself and Taryn were just about to graduate from college, and a friend (actually a Rhodes Lecturer) told us about how we could work in Japan as English teachers- all we needed was a University degree. So the process began. Application form, interview and then shortlist after shortlist. All together a grueling 10 month period. But good things come to those who wait. So we saved our money, packed our bags and hopped onto a flight bound for Hong Kong and then Narita Airport in Tokyo. Were we out of my minds?
On final approach to Narita International Airport, we looked down to find a green landscape shrouded in fog. As we got closer to the ground, we began to notice all the different colours of the tile and metal rooftops: red, blue, green... and of course the rice fields. They are everywhere.
The first hurdle we encountered was the Immigration line, divided into Japanese and non-Japanese, with the line of non-Japanese filling the room and travelling at a snail's pace. The book had said to look nice to get better treatment from the officials- our turn finally came up, he just stamped my passport and said, "Enjoy your stay." We passed through Customs and finally into the main area, where our friendly fellow JET participants were waiting eagerly to show us where to go, where to check our bags in and what to do. It was chaos. I looked over at this little mother and father saying hello to their daughter and the little brother clinging to his moms leg. I knew how he felt. Our stay in Tokyo was short lived- only three days. Not close to enough time to be adventurous and explore the city that never sleeps.
More travelling. This time to Fukuoka- our home. Upon arrival, we were greeted by our supervisors who were so happy to see us. But before we could settle down, we had to get our massive trunks that we had sent over a few weeks before. This was no easy task. We had sent over a few cans of deodorant, because alas, even though Japan being one of the most efficient countries in the world, they don’t have anti perspirant deodorant and fluoride in their toothpaste. Weird hey….Is this still Earth?
We were finally escorted to our apartment in Shime-machi where we fell in love with the place straight away. Besides the fact that the place was filthy- I mean three days worth of filthy- thanks to my predecessor, it was beautiful. We kicked off our shoes, put our slippers on. Not really accustomed to the whole taking shoes off once entering a room, but in Japan this is the main thing to do when entering a room. We put our bags down and retreated to the living room. Then somewhere around that point, my brain overloaded. I couldn't speak the language- people would talk to me and I couldn't answer. I couldn't read the signs. Everything was covered in arcane little symbols. Even the light switches. I sat there, frozen, on the tiny blue living room sofa.
A shower is what I needed. This is an ordeal in its own. Normal is just not in the Japanese vocab. In order to heat up the shower, you have to first put the gas on then turn a little lever to heat up the water. An archaic system. The Western-style toilet had two flush settings (if I used the wrong one, would the toilet overflow?). The culture didn’t hit us as hard as many other Gaejins (foreigners) because we had done a lot of research into the people and the country. The food was weird-why couldn't we get a slice of toast less than an inch thick, and why does everything smell like fish.
Our parents back home. finally got hold of us. My mom said something ill never forget ‘You're there to enjoy yourself. Now go have fun because you'll have plenty of time to get a real job when you get back!"
Well, we took her advice. We’re painting Nihon-go (Japan) red. Slowly but surely...one month and counting.
