Bit O' Travel

The last two weekends of my life have been spent away from home. A couple of weeks ago, some friends and I swung down to Nagoya, which is Japan’s third largest city. Let me tell you, after spending a few months in the countryside, it was really good to see the crowds again, and I do mean crowds in the mosh pit sense of the word. It was especially bad that weekend because it was the closing two days of the World Expo. For those of you not in the know, every five years, at some previously chosen point, there is a World Exposition. In 2000, it was held in Hanover, Germany, and in 2010 it will be in Shanghai, but this year (it opened in March) it was held in Aichi, Japan, which is just outside of Nagoya. Basically, it is a huge (we’re talking multiple square miles) area where various countries set up pavilions and display all kinds of things about themselves. It’s a chance for others who may not get a chance to travel much to see and learn about all parts of the world. But more on that in its chronological time and place. Friday was a day off, so we hopped on the bus in the morning and a short 3.5 hours later, we arrived in the heart of Nagoya. The rush of seeing thousands of people walking the streets made me feel somewhat alive, refreshed. It was definitely a good energy. We got on the metro and rode down to Sakae, the shopping district, to grab a bite to eat before heading to Nagoya Castle, one of the few “touristy” sight seeing attractions of the city (because the city fell victim to massive bombing raids during World War II, most of it had to be rebuilt, which would explain why most of the buildings are not more than fifty years old, a fact that explains Nagoya’s lack of standard “old” sightseeing attractions.) Naturally, we got there at 4:27 PM and the castle and the park surrounding it closed down at 4:30. So we took what glimpses we could and just sat around, waited for the sun to go down, got bit by these nasty little flies and headed off for the dining location for the evening, an Okinawan restaurant.

There, we were actually meeting some Japanese folks (Melanie’s (Melanie is one of the people we were with) ex-boyfriend is Japanese and lives in Nagoya and showed up with some of his friends to the restaurant)). At first, it was somewhat odd, because of the language barrier but the sake got going and seemed to at least melt it away a little bit. The food turned out to be not so good (but expensive enough to pretend to be good) and there was this one-man band there who sang Okinawan music, which was ok for about three songs, but then seemed like he put them on repeat. We finished up quickly and then were taken by Hiroshi (the ex-boyfriend) to this Australian bar down the street, which featured an eclectic mix of music as well as Japanese and foreigners. We hung there for three hours or so, continuing the merriment, getting to know each other, the locals, and even some other fellow JETS from the Nagoya area. It was actually a pretty good time and I got to know phone number number one for the weekend. At about 1:00 AM or so, we began the three hour search for the lodgings for the evening (remember that EXPO, yeah, everything was booked) which was to be that unique Japanese creation, the Love Hotel.

What is a love hotel? Well, in Japan, many young people live with their parents much longer than in other countries (probably due to a little bit of the “lack of vast open lands for people to live in” as well as Japan being quite a filial society). So, its quite common to find 20 somethings living with their parents and grandparents in the same house (hmm, I can say the same for myself) and obviously it would be quite a tricky feat to bring a loved one (or simply an attracted one) to the house and engage in acrobatics with one’s grandmother sleeping in the next room. Luckily, there’s a love hotel down the street where you can get a room by the hour or for the entire night. Another reason is that (and this is much more of a conjecture on my part) in Japan, the idea of fidelity is an important one on a very shallow level. In public appearance and within the realm of the “talked about,” yeah, everyone is faithful, involved in deeply committed, loyal, treasured relationships and marriages. But, within the more hush, hush private realm, this is highly not the case. Cheating, in fact, is quite common and even perhaps acceptable and tolerated, as long as it is not openly talked about, takes place out of sight, out of mind, and is kept purely between the two (or more) committing the act. Something everybody knows, no one will admit, and it continues to operate, and a love hotel is a perfect invention to keep this mechanism going. The basic set up is the following. Outside urban centers, the building has as many garages as it has rooms. You pull into a garage, you walk up a set of stairs, and you go into your room (all the rooms are unlocked). Once you are in, you are locked in until you choose to leave. (There is no checking into a love hotel, there is no come and go as you please). In more urban spots, you park in a communal garage, but there is a separate in and out elevator, so you never have to cross paths with anyone coming out. Once inside, the rooms are actually quite nice. They are super clean (another amazing feat of Japanese technical wizardry) and contain all the amenities suitable to living up to the name of the institution. Once you are finished with the room, you leave and pay for the time you were in there (its all electronically monitored through the opening and closing of the door) through a slot in the wall. Slide money in, leave, and no one knows any different…conclude what you will…

Since they are cheaper than regular hotels, we had decided that it would be a convenient place to spend the night. They are usually pretty easy to spot, as they are decorated with all kinds of crazy neon signs and have strange architecture, as well as ringer names like “Malibu Oasis” or “Heaven Hotel.” The first one we went to was all filled up, completely. In the lobby, there were several waiting rooms, but we decided that it might be a long wait. The second had a Ferrari F-150 standing behind a glass case in the garage, but it too turned out to be quite full. At this point, we assumed that all the ones in the downtown area would be full, so we began to make our way out to the suburbs, which would be closer to next day’s destination anyway. Two or three hotels later, we finally found one that had vacancies (thank god for those Japanese friends, who literally drove around for like two, three hours trying to find a bunch of foreigners a love hotel). It was an individual garage set up and we finally got up to our room, which we would be sharing between five people. The room had a small living room area with a T.V. and a fridge containing a number of “things” other than the usual hotel fridge fare. The bathroom was nice, all granite and stone like, with a huge shower area and a rather big Jacuzzi. But the highlight was the bedroom. Literally, every inch of the walls and ceilings were covered with mirrors (even the windows were mirrored); never quite been in a room like it. The bed was a king and had speakers and stereo built in. On the whole a rather nice room, except we couldn’t figure out how to turn off the A/C, so it got quite cold. We slept for about four hours, before setting off for the EXPO. (As a side note, many of these hotels come with themed rooms – i.e. ocean, jungle, Paris, use your imagination.)

Since we were in the middle of nowhere and didn’t really know how to get to where we were going, we had to hitch hike. (Here’s a lovely picture for you – six foreigners standing outside of a Love Hotel, trying to flag down a car). After only five minutes, a nice Japanese man in a van pulled over and offered to drive us to the train station, which we discovered was for a railroad (an elevated monorail) that was built specifically for the EXPO. We got to the grounds (which were humongous), queued up, and got in. First thing we did was to ride the aerial gondolas to get an idea of what we were up against. They took us across the entire expo and upon disembarking, we ended up right next to the Russian pavilion (yeah baby) and so that was our first stop. The theme of this EXPO was the environment and conservation and all that good stuff, so many of the pavilions were devoted to exhibiting what particular countries are doing for this cause. The Russian one wasn’t all that interesting, actually, so it proved to be a quick breeze. From there, it was on to the UK, Switzerland, Holland (yeah baby), Africa (funny how all these countries get their own pavilion, and then there’s the country of Africa.) We had some pretty good African food (ostrich curry, I didn’t know they had ostriches in Africa). Among others we visited were Germany, Spain, Iran, Nepal, India, China, Qatar (yeah, that’s a country), Australia, and my personal favorite, Bhutan (a tiny Buddhist country up in the Himalayas). It would be too much to go into details here about all these pavilions (if you’re interested, then google “World Expo 2005 Aichi”) but I will make a number of remarks. First, we saw only a brief part of the Expo and it would literally take days to see the whole thing because it was so huge. Second, because it was the second to the last day (of an EXPO that started last March) there were approximately a billion people there, which meant that the lines to get into these pavilions were quite long, and very reminiscent of waiting for the rides at Great America. But, in many cases we avoided that problem, because between us we had seven languages with some level of conversation, and so we sweet talked our way into some pavilions without having to wait at all. These pavilions were run by people from those countries. The German case was most striking, where the line was 3.5 hours (yeah, 3.5 hours). Two of the girls we were with spoke German and flirted with the German fellow at the front and we got in after only five minutes. I actually felt quite guilty walking in front of all these poor Japanese who had been standing in line for so long. But, so be it… Third, it was interesting to see that the richer countries could afford to make highly elaborate displays actually having to do with the environment, etc. while the poorer ones were mostly bazaars, selling stuff from their countries for excessively inflated prices (i.e. Nepal, where I briefly considered buying an elaborate mandala that would have run me about $100). After an exhausting day, we made our way back into the city, got freshened up in the subway bathroom, and tried booking a room at the Hilton for a healthy $279/night. But, alas, they were booked up as well and we were left with a night on the town.

We met up another friend of Melanie’s (the soon to be phone number number three) and headed for our destination for the evening, the id Bar. On our way, we stopped over at an amusement arcade (a whole other entry at some point in the future) where we went to the photo booths for some pictures. These are not like the photo booths that you know. They are quite spacious (could fit up to eight people) and afterwards you can add a gajillion effects and alterations to your photos, print them, email them, probably animate them, and all sorts of other business. Here, I met phone number number two and her friend, and we took some pictures. Fun times. Finally, we got to the club, sorted out our luggage in the lockers, and began to properly enjoy the night. It was one of those four story things, where each story has a bar and a dj is spinning a different type of music. We chilled in the basement for a while, where it was mostly 80s stuff, including Thriller. Then, up to the first floor, where there was some trance and house (yeah, baby, yeah). It was amazing to see Japanese people dance to this stuff. There was a bit of a state, which was actually a series of long steps, and the dancers lined up on it and faced the crowd. Each had a glow stick or two and they danced in complete uniformity to the music. It was hot and sweaty and an entirely really good time (best time I’ve had out dancing in a while…) At around 2:00, the place shut, and we left, walking the streets of Nagoya, enjoying the night with its denizens. Feeling a bit of the old hunger, we went to (drum roll please), Denny’s. The mere sight of it got me really excited because I have been dreaming of a Moons over my Hammy for quite some time, but it turned out to serve Japanese food, plus some strange pasta dishes, with the only similarity with its American counterpart being a side of French toast. But, food is food and it had to do. At a healthy 3:30, it was time to find a place to crash, and what better place to do so than a 24 hour karaoke parlor, where you rent a room by the hour to sing your heart away. Of course we didn’t realize that the room would be the size of a prison cell, perfect for singing and drinking, not quite so right for housing six people for the night. But, there was no choice, we laid out how we could, three on the floor (me by the door, two underneath the table) and three on the little benches that lined the wall. Let me tell you it was the most atrocious sleeping experience I’ve had in a while, but we shared it all together and actually managed to get some hours of sleep. (And we didn’t even bother singing). The next day, we had a nice traditional Japanese breakfast, headed to the bus station and some hours later, came back to sleepy, old Ishikawa, to conclude an exhausting but thoroughly enjoyable weekend. Definitely will go back to Nagoya at some point as it was a very nice city and why not put those phone numbers to good use?

And just as you thought this intolerably long blog was coming to its conclusion, there’s still a whole other weekend to write about, last weekend. But I’ll make it as short and brief as possible… I went to Nagano (the site of the ’98 Winter Olympics) where there was an all Japan ALT soccer tournament. Basically, every prefecture (i.e. Ishikawa, sort of like the states in the US) has ALTs (me, Assistant Language Teacher), and some of them get together to start up a soccer team (both boys and girls have their own team). And so the Ishikawa team, along with about twenty or so others got together in Nagano for a two days soccer tourney. Our team isn’t very good and I’m not even on it, but I got bamboozled into going as a spectator and a cheerer. It was about a four hour drive, and it turned out to be not in Nagano proper, but in the mountains just outside of the city (a hell of a ways up in the mountains, in fact, where a nice big plateau housed a bunch of hotels and soccer pitches). The first night was all strategy and getting some rest. The next day, Saturday, soccer was played all day. I watched a girls’ match (I’m sorry, but it was utterly pathetic) and four of the boys’ matches, which were actually enjoyable to watch. Our boys team (historically highly bad) actually managed to win one of these, but it was hard work. That night, the hotel hosted a party for us (there were like three hundred people) and being there actually felt like being back home (its funny how that sometimes happens, especially when I’m surrounded by other foreigners, I briefly forget where I am, and when I do remember, its quite a shock.) Everyone was quite exhausted, except me, who had done nothing but lounge around all day on the grass and yell occasional “I say Ishi, you say Kawa – Ishi, Kawa.” The dj was kind of crap and so many congregated outside, talked, relaxed, and even though the whole thing was a disgusting meat market, I did manage to meet some nice interesting people. Hm, where did Roman spend the night?
The next day was the elimination tournament and both of our teams got through one game before being eliminated. We ate some kareraisu for lunch (pronounce that slowly several times and you’ll figure out what it is) and headed home. On the way, we got a speeding ticket (a big no no in Japan, I wasn’t driving luckily), and the fine was a whopping $350 for going like 30 km over. Anyway, another long, happy weekend in Japan, returning to the countryside and resuming the responsible working life. Ok, I think I have exhausted myself writing this (but it has to be the longest blog ever). If fact, I doubt that anyone got this far…

Anyway, hope all are well. Missing the home land. This weekend, I’m off to Osaka, for a concert. Sooo excited. The OFFSPRING baby. Yeah, baby. Yeah, baby. When we went to buy tickets for the show, they were almost sold out and they could only sell individual tickets, as there were no seats left that were together. So we buy one, and kaboom, its sold out. And who got that last ticket? Yeah, baby. Terribly excited. And plus I get to see Osaka…

Ok, boys and girls, take care of yourselves and go do something productive… Much love…
P.S. Read Mr. Murakami’s “The Kidney Shaped Stone That Moves” in the New Yorker. Its quite good. In other Murakami news, sometime next year, he will release another volume of short stories in the U.S.. In Japan, he has either recently published or will soon publish his newest novel, After Dark. Who knows when that’ll be translated, but hopefully soon, but not before the next TOOL disc. Ok, ok, I’m done, I’m done. Out.