Kansai Travels

Well im finally coming to the end of six days travelling in Kansai and its been great to see what the rest of Japan has to offer.

Arrived in Osaka on the overnight bus last thursday and spent a couple of days there. Osaka isnt pretty, huge swaythes of concrete in all directions but it does seem like a lot of fun . Imagine a very sexed up version of Birmingham and maybe you get a rough analogy. The people too seemed very earthy and much more used to foreigners than Kyushuns... they know how to react!

Living in a big city such as Osaka is a completely different experience from living somewhere like Kumamoto. Both kinds of experiences have their pros and cons , it depends what you want to get out of whilst living in Japan.

Had a rather unusual experience in Osaka as I was pretty much assaulted by a guy in the subway who wanted to practice his rendition of JFKs inauguration speech (dont ask why). We went to a cafe and he bought me a coffee whilst I patiently listened. He then asked me if i wanted to meet up later and i reluctantly accepted thinking he wanted to get a free english lesson. I met him in his hotel, which turned out to my surprise to be the most expensive hotel in Osaka. After a few minutes of conversation he invited me to stay in his Tokyo flat "but im afraid... my maids dont cook very well." It turns out he is a lecturer at the university of Tokyo (japanese cambridge) and a man of considerable academic importance. He then preceded to take me to an Ookonomiyaki restaurant "lets get drunk" he said, and we feasted on ookonomiyaki pankakes untill I was almost sick. He was a rather socially awkward fellow which is often the case with people with brilliant minds and was silent for a lot of the time and the rest of the time he was trying to get me to chat up Japanese women "talk to her! say something in Japanese!". The next day he promised to meet me but kept on postponing our meeting, telling me to ring later. It turns out he was too busy as he was asking for permission for someones hand in marriage!

Seeing so many foreigners in Osaka was quite a shock. There are quite a few as there is a televideo teaching centre that employs 600 teachers. What was even more of a shock was going to a nightclub on new years eve and finding the majority of people were gaijin. Of course new years eve wouldnt be new years eve without being crap and it was! Unfortunately i witnessed the full power and potential of the gaijin syndromed man at work that night. Imagine that in the 1970s a whole shipload of spanish builders all called Carlos travel to Essex and settle there to teach how to cook paella. To the innocent Essex woman (incidentally whose Japanese equivalent would be from Osaka) Carlos is the height of european exoticism, dark brooding and sexy. To the spanish however he is just another greasy gringo loser. Carlos however begins to think of himself as a latin lover god and his ego expands well beyond the limits of his appendage creating the perfect nobend. In Japan Carlos could be Mike, Jim or even Dwayne!

Also went to Kobe which was actually quite attractive for a Japanese city (most Japanese cities tend to look the same and are rather dull) but I think this owed more to its interesting geographical location than to its architecture. Also visted Kyoto and saw many temples, got lost trying to find other temples and then infuriated when I got completely lost not trying not to find a temple! Kyoto was pleasant but again it looks like any other Japanese city; it just happens to be littered with interesting sites and temples and shrines. Kyoto people I found to be a lot colder and stuck up than other Japanese people I have met. I have now therefore developed a sociological theory: when you have a place rammed with a lot of culture, the people obviously develop a lot of pride. But this pride can easily get out of hand and mutate into arrogance, a feeling of cultural superiority and up-your-own-arse-edness.

Ergo: The French.

It was also interesting meeting tourists here. Before I came to Japan I had met a few people who hadnt really enjoyed their visit. Now I can understand why because I think coming to Japan as a tourist, particularly if you havent been to Asia can be quite an overwhelming experience as well as a big culture shock. Talking to others really made me realise how much I have learnt about Japanese culture and also how much I have yet to learn!

Leaving Kyushu has made me appreciate what a cool place it is to be. Kyushu people are amazingly friendly if a little shyer and less used to foreigners. Maybe I feel more tempted to move on now eventually because its far from where all the action is in Japan but I feel very glad I came here first because its a great place to learn about Japanese culture and meet people.