Elections - Apr. 22 2007

Today is the second election day in 2 weeks in Hirakata. The first election was for governor of Osaka prefecture and this one that is happening today is for Mayor of Hirakata city. There are a few interesting things to note about the electoral process here.

First, there are rarely debates during electoral campaigns and the main aspect of campaigning for politicians is to go around in cars with speakers and yell out their names. The concept of democracy here is quite different and a large majority of Japanese don't really care. Some people think that the elections are decided before the elections between companies. I read that some companies encourage their employees to vote for a certain candidate.

In the case of the mayor elections, there are no limits to the number of candidates there can be.. for example, for the city of Hirakata there are nearly 60 candidates. (see picture) one of my friends was telling me of all the candidates for the mayor of Tokyo, only a handful are serious and the other contenders, mostly business owners, use the opportunity of the campaigning to promote their business more than their political platform. The reality is that promoting oneself in the context of a campaign (on posters, in the streets and on the radio) is much cheaper than advertising specifically for a product.

I was happy to hear that today was election day because the small streets of Hirakata have been noisy lately with all the trucks running around yelling slogans and candidates names over and over again with speakers that can be heard kilometres around.

Hirapa - Apr. 21 2007

I am dead tired, but what a great day to visit Hirakata Park, a local theme park.. the weather was great, not too hot, not too cold, partially cloudy with parcels of sun. If we backtrack one more day, yesterday I went to an Okonomiyaki place (Japanese pizza) and I had the best I ever had! The restaurant boasts that they preserve the traditional taste of Osaka. (Osaka is known for Okonomiyaki and takoyaki - fried octopus dumplings).

But back to today, I havn't been in a theme parc for a long time, so this was very refreshing and the parc itself is very beautiful. I took many videos and some during rides, I hope I can post them soon.

This theme parc was pretty standard except for a walk-in ride that you literally walk in a giant fridge with fake-oversized food. The second weird thing was the samurai-themed haunted house that features a Kill Bill style beheading at the end! There was one special 4-D ride where you have to go in an egyptian coffin and look through a virtual-reality mask and you see images and you have to keep your hands outside the coffin. At some point you see scorpions in the screen and you feel something pointy hitting your hands! From that point I did not have the guts to leave my hands outside the coffin. You later find out that they were monitoring your heart beat ect.. and they give you the results of how brave / wimp you are when you get out!

Also Japanese "fear" of water was also apparent in this park since in every ride where you had the possibility of getting wet, they would take all the precautions to make sure you don't wet: in the amazon rapid ride, they put tall plastic sheets around the vehicle to the point that you cannot see anything outside and they even offer ponchos at the beginning of the ride. In the log ride with a big drop, they put a large plastic window at front to prevent the water from falling in the log when it does its final drop in the water.

For a nice Saturday, the parc seemed pretty empty; there was practically no waiting time, but rumors say that this park is usually closed until the beginning of May, but because of the exceptionally mild weather, they opened a little earlier, so most people might not be aware of that.

Apparently there is also a slump in domestic travel and it has lead to the closure of two theme parcs: Nara Dreamland in Nara and Festival Gate in Osaka. I might visit 4 more theme parcs in Japan: Expoland in Osaka, Parque Espana in Mie prefecture, Universal Studios in Osaka and the Disneyland resort in Tokyo.

Parc visit in Osaka - Apr. 14 2007

We visited a nice park today in the outskirts of Osaka... highlights in point form:

1. Small earthquake scares my American friend and I for a few seconds but the Japanese barely seem to care

2. People singing Karaoke all over the park (they bring their own equipment and have Karaoke rounds)

3. The park is big but there are so many people that to play ball, frisbee etc, there is a very limited amount of space but everyone seems to manage to get along well (they have to be used to small spaces)

4. We end up in downtown Osaka and I spend a ridiculous amount of money in Taiko and Drumset simulation games at the arcade

5. We see a cool taiko performance in the park (real taiko, not simulation!)

Campus resuscitates - Apr. 11 2007

Today school started again for Japanese Universities. After over 2 months of a near deserted campus with mainly foreign students, the campus suddenly became packed with Japanese students... to the extent that sometimes we have to eat outside on the floor and there are now bicycle traffic jams and shortage of bicycle parking space! It might be a hassle sometimes, but at least the campus is alive and there are opportunities to meet with Japanese students everyday. For the first week there will be tables set up to join one of the many clubs or circles. From traditional instruments to Spanish conversation club, there is something for every taste. Clubs seem to be super important in a students life and they take a huge commitment from the student: meetings or practices everyday and various team building events outside the campus.

The freshmen stand out because they seem shy and lost, but some of the courageous, outgoing and confident ones come to the Center for International Education (CIE) and chat with the foreigners. One of my Japanese friends told me that during his freshmen years, everyone talked about going to the CIE as if it was a big mission to overcome.

Identity Crisis - Apr. 7 2007

For my 60th post, I will talk about a major issue in Japan that will dictate the direction of the country in the future.

After the crash of the Japanese economy in the 1990's the Japanese have been under pressure to change their way of doing business, but that also means their way of thinking and their culture. Attacks from global competitors, acquisitions from foreign companies, kidnappings from the North Korean regime, constant tension between Japan, China and Korea because of their troubled past has all contributed to this issue of identity crises. I think that most Japanese understand that they must change in some way, but how and where to start is such a delicate question. There are movements who are for the preservation of traditional values and a nationalist Japan with its own military power. Nihonkaigi is an important right-wing lobby group. The above picture is a propaganda vehicle that is most often operated by Yakuza. Other important organizations such as the Japanese Business Association seem to be more for reform in order to refresh the economy. (Keiranden)... they have recently proposed a plan to reorganize the government so it does not play such a big role in business.
The core values of core Japan are also being put to question... gender inequality for example, seems to be tied to sex education in Japanese high schools and some lobbyts warn the public that gender equality rhymes with androgyny.

The demographics of Japan is also creating a shortage of labor and the government is very reluctant to look towards immigration, which would in fact question who is a Japanese?

With the present government, Japan doesn't seem to have a chance to change in a rational way, but the government is not popular at all which is an indication that the people of Japan is looking for change, but the bureaucracy is not.

Sakura - Apr. 2 2007

I am extremely tired. Saturday I woke up at 7 am and did not go to bed before 7 am on Sunday morning, then slept all day, woke up around 7pm and of course had difficultly sleeping: I only slept two hours before waking up at 7am for class and here I am at 9:30pm working on my blog. I will go to bed early tonight.

The big day on Saturday however is justified. I went to yet another interesting trip to Kyoto, this time with 7 friends; 4 foreigners and 4 Japanese. The day started at Heian shrine, famous for it's secret garden, that I completely forgot about and thought it was quite an ordinary shrine! However, there was the biggest Torii gate I have ever seen before and cherry blossom had started, adding some beauty to the site. I indulged in some kanji writing in the pebbles of the Heian shrine court. I wrote "HANAMI" which means viewing the cherry blossoms.

We were supposed to head straight to the Silver pavilion, but the buses were so full (Kyoto is a very popular spot for foreign and local tourists during cherry blossoms) so we first went to Heian shrine. Still wanting to walk down the famous "Philosoper's walk" we managed to get crammed into a jammed-packed bus and we had a pleasant stroll and saw postcard-beautiful spots for hanami. After walking down the 2km path, we stopped to regain some energy at a little local restaurant where I had fried noodles.

We were then ready to climb up the Daimon-ji yama, a mountain famous for the enourmous "dai" kanji on it (chinese character for "great"). The character is lit on fire every year as part of traditional celebrations to scare away bad spirits. The climb was not too tiring, but we had to stop several times to catch our breath, the climb was fairly steep at some points. The climb was definitely worth it as we had one of the best views of Kyoto at the top. From the top we could see Kyoto tower and the gigantic Torii gate infront of Heian shrine (try to spot them on the photos).

Once we were back down we were all tired and ready to soak in the hot spring. For most of us it was our first experience... again, I did not feel comfortable taking photos so here is a link for a photo google search on Kurama Onsen: Photos.

After spending 30 minutes soaked in the extremely hot water, we headed back to hirakatashi for some Japanese-style partying: Karaoke! My first time since in Japan! This was a great place to spend the whole night: there were pool tables, darts, ping-pong and a comic-book viewing room as well. Although juice and softdrink was unlimited, we preferred sneaking in some alcohol and getting drunk on the spot.

Karaoke was so fun, everyone participated and I even tried singing two Japanese songs (terrible!) I was having too much fun to bother taking photos or videos, but we already decided to return, so next time I will try to post a video of my Karaoke-singer skills. The whole thing is so technologically advanced! You have an electronic touch-tone screen device to choose your songs from and the songs line up as we choose them. There are options to give scores on the performances. This was the most luxurious karaoke I have ever been to. We are also in private rooms, which is great.

Around 5 AM the Japanese were all dead tired and were sleeping in the karaoke room and I left with the last foreigner that was still there playing pool by himself, half falling asleep.

The staff obviously knew we had sneaked in beer but they did not say a word, they seemed to ignore it and the other Japanese customers (all around our age) did not seem to mind either.

I walked back to the dorms and went to bed around 7am...

South Korea - Mar. 26 2007

Yesterday I returned from a 5 day trip in South Korea. I will only do one entry about it since this site is based on Japan. There are also photos of my Korea trip in the photo section.

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March 21

The first thing we experienced in Korea was complete unintelligibility as a cab driver was inviting us to drive us to our hostel (please read: hostel, not hotel.. explained later). South Koreans are very insisting and even if we don't understand and clearly show we don't understand, they continue speaking to us! That is much different from Japan where people generally don't approach strangers at all! Late at night taxi drivers are notoriously known to refuse foreigners... One of the best things is that many things are much cheaper here than in Japan... transportation, food and clothing. Many Japanese people come here to spend their Yen.

The second shock was our inability to read anything! The first restaurant we went to we were able to have some help from a generous person from our hostel, but we never sure what we actually ordered until we received it. Korean food was just like I had expected it, and even better: spicy, tasty and filling.

The first night we went to Dondaemon market where we were exposed to the first "flea market on the street" area and I impulsively purchased a t-shirt with the South Korean emblem on it as well as a patch with the same symbol and finally an "Astro Boy" belt. We ended the night by going to the movie theater (the first time since I am in Asia) and watched the "controversial" 300 movie. The movie was in English, subtitled in Korean. Nothing strange here apart from one snack I got with my popcorn and drink: dried squid peanut-butter shreds... Very tasty, but not for me...

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March 22

The highlight of today is going to a gigantic outdoors fleamarket that extended block after block. We probably would have never have time to see everything in one day. I went in a shopping frenzy again and ended up being a suite (pants and jacket) shirts and ties and the shoes that go with them. I took some pictures to try to show the enormity of the place and the amount of junk they have, but those pictures don't make justice to the feeling there was. I also felt that most of the customers were Japanese because the vendors said: Irasshaimase, which is a saying clerks always say in Japan to invite customers in. Some of them also said: yasukushimasukara... "because me make it cheap".

After my first whole day in Korea I can tell that Koreans are a loud bunch compared to Japanese they like to drink to and can be seen drunk in the streets every night (all ages, compared to Japan where generally older salary man are seen drunk on trains). Physically, the guys are generally taller and more built... I was actually pretty short compared to most Koreans. They seem to be much more accustomed to gaijins because they never stare at us or make remarks when they see us, and on the train, when we sit next to them, they don't move away or change seats. Also, they also don't have the reflex of thinking we don't know Korean because they first talk to us in Korean and continue talking to us in Korean even if we obviously show we don't understand. Most of all, they are very warm and strangers always say hello to us and randomly try to pick up a conversation with us either in English or Korean. Young school girls in groups learning English would always wave us hello and be really surprised when we would respond in one of the very few words we knew in Korean.

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March 23

The highlight of the day was certainly visiting the Demilitarized Zone. In our tour we visited an infiltration tunnel constructed by the North Koreans AFTER the cease-fire. Three other tunnels were discovered with one that had a capacity of 30,000 soldiers an hour. One tunnel was just 52 KM away from Seoul, and was discovered in 1990! This showed that Korea was really a separated country that was still at war today and the tension could be felt. It saddened me to hear stories of families who were separated and could only see each other for a few minutes every year, and also the fact that South Korea has a big military burden to ensure national security because of the North Korean threat. I do not have many photos of the DMZ because in most places pictures where forbidden and I tried to take one picture of North Korea that was erased by a South Korean soldier. My favorite moment of the DMZ tour was when I visited the Dorasan station, the last station of Seoul, 10 KM from the border of North Korea. This is a modern and grand station that is always empty. For now, the train passes there 3 times a day, but the South Koreans are proud of this station as it represents the future of Korea, a unified Korea. Seen in this light, this station is not the last station of Seoul, but the first station to go to North Korea. The picture of me with the sign indicating Seoul and Pyongyang in the background is a famous sign that was in the media with a South Korean soldier in front during the talks about the North Korea nuclear test.

Our tour ended in Itaewon, one of the entertainment districts of Seoul. We had lunch there and visited the shops on the streets. This place was crowded with foreigners and even seemed to have an Arab community. South Korea decided that globalization was inevitable and decided to move with it by embracing immigration, among others.

We continued our Korean War-themed day by visiting the War Museum that had an impressive memorial and displays of military vehicles and weapons that were used during the Korean war. One plane was donated by Canada and was used as a service plane.

The night ended up with us getting completely drunk in a small bar near our hostel and we had lots of fun speaking with Koreans and them teaching us Korean culture and especially how to drink like a Korean. One person we met in particular had to be escorted out by his friends by the end of the day. I did some silly things myself, I am still waiting for videos and photos from my friends.

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March 24

Today was a gray/rainy day and we did not do anything special. We strolled the streets of the financial district looking for a building we never found, we say the Seoul stock exchange and visited an underground wall that was so busy it was overwhelming for all of us. This is one of the most populated cities after all.
While searching for a particular building, we unexpectedly found a HUGE church. The Christian movement seems very strong in Korea and there are religious buildings everywhere. That was very surprising to me. This church in particular was very imposing. Try to find the picture of the church in my Album and notice the person climbing the stairs to notice the hugeness of it.
We had dinner in a food court and my appetite for Korean food was so big I ordered two meals. The second one was exquisite: kimichi sauce with rice, cheese and vegetables cooked in a stone bowl served with assortments of small plates of fish and vegetables.

Tonight I wanted a break from the rest of the gang so I went off to Itaewon again during the night this time. I saw a glimpse of what an Asian red light could look like: prostitutes displayed in windows and woman ushering you in their establishments. At some point one young looking woman came up to me and pleaded me to have fun with her for 100,000 won (about 120$ CAD) and she was very insisting. I made it clear I was there to have a beer or two and not looking for that kind of entertainment.

I went to a small pub and ending up meeting another person from Quebec there for travel so we chatted a while and went bar hopping. I ended up sleeping in other hostel on the couch in the lobby without having to pay.

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March 25

As most trips end, this was a particularly sunny and warm day. We returned to the Dondaemon market because the guys wanted to shop around for things before they leave. We broke off in pairs and my friend and I walked in a poor neighborhood and took a picture of two women peeling vegetables on the street.

I had 30,000 Won left (about 27$ CAD) so instead of converting it back to Yen which would not have been that advantageous I bought yet another pair of shoes that I don't even know how I will bring back at this point!

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About the hostel: the hostel was very cheap, 15$ a night, but it was also very dirty. It had this lingering smell of sweat and moisture that always struck us like a blow in the face everytime we entered. This time we had a 4 bed room so we felt it was more private. The most hated part of the hostel though, and agreed by all the customers, was the bathroom. The area is as big as a medium-sized closet and when you take a shower you are between the toilette and the sink. I really did not enjoy taking showers there, but having the shower running right on the same floor as the toilet is the norm in Korea.