Toganji Temple, Nagoya

Last Tuesday (May 4, 2010), two friends and I went to Toganji Temple in Nagoya to visit the Big Buddha statue. One of my friends recently downloaded a geocaching application on her iPhone and discovered that there is a cache at Toganji Temple. Tanya found the cache. We discovered another cache nearby so went in search of it. Charlotte found it. They wanted to go in search of one more cache so that I could have my turn of being the first to find the cache. I declined because in both cases, I’d suggested the possible locations but didn’t want to encounter bugs or other unsavory characters in my quest. I guess I need to get over my issues with bugs and dirty hands.

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Meiji Mura, Inuyama

Two friends and I went to Meiji Mura on May 2, 2010 since we had an extra three days off for Golden Week. We prepared a picnic lunch of vegetables, bread, hummus, banana chocolate chip muffins, bean salad and egg salad. We spent about 4 hours at Meiji Mura before heading back home.

Meiji Mura is a Japanese open air museum about 30 minutes (driving) from Nagoya with architectural artifacts from the Meiji period (1868 – 1912). It was opened in 1965.

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Pictures from Oct 2009 in Nagoya

Nagoya Festival, October 3, 2009

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Osu Kannon October 10, 2009

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Atsuta Shrine, October 11, 2009

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Downtown Nagoya

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Random Pics in Nagoya

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Lamp pole that sings and other random things

There is one lamp pole in the middle of Nagoya that sings to you as you walk past it. It even seems to know your name.

Ooops. Sorry, that’s my futuristic post. There is no such lamp post in Nagoya, but there are a bunch of random things that I love about my life here.

1. There really are speakers on the lamp posts (or beside them somewhere) that play music as you walk in Sakae (downtown Nagoya).
2. As we stood at a red hand in Sakae yesterday (on our way to getting Coldstone ice cream), my friend looked behind us and noticed that there was a long line of people behind us. Everyone was waiting patiently without shoving or elbowing. Khartoum folks, can you imagine it!! Think of queues into the airport in the early morning. What a contrast!
3. Coldstone ice cream “like it” size is a manageable amount of ice cream. I can actually have it. I’d decided never to get another Coldstone ice cream in the states because it’s too big and I should never eat that much rich ice cream in one seating.
4. Starbucks has a creme brulee flavored coffee that’s not too sweet!
5. People don’t stare at me as I walk around Nagoya (or if they do, they’re really good at doing it covertly.
6. Canadians are considered good drivers so I don’t have to take a driving test (sorry Charlotte).
7. I have a GPS that can go home and an iPhone that can do almost everything else including get me home.
8. My iPhone has a compass.
9. I feel safe in my neighbourhood, enough so to go walking alone at night.
10. I have my own car but can carpool with colleagues off and on.
11. I can have excellent Japanese, Indian or American and Indian and Japanese are within walking distance. You can find almost any restaurant you want downtown.

To those of you who know me well, you’ll know that I hate stopping on an odd number when counting; I’m becoming a risk taker in Japan

To Cook or not to Cook

Sushi train is about a 5 minute walk away and Jusco (the supermarket/department store) is about 10 minutes away. Sushi train (as the name suggests) specializes in sushi. Jusco has bento boxes and sushi meals, as well as salads and lots of tempura foods. I can buy a meal (sans tempura which I don’t particularly like) for $3-$4. Most meals at Jusco are marked down in the evening. So considering the high cost of (most) fruits and vegetables and my disinterest in cooking for one, should I just give up my determination to cook most of my meals myself? That is the question …

I love my GPS …

First of all, I managed to drive down to Nagoya University to pick up some items that I’d bought at a sayonara sale. I found the coordinates online, plugged them into the GPS and off we went. Tanya (colleague) and I managed to stuff all my purchases in the car. She even had to carry some things on her lap. I had to keep reminding myself that looking at the rear view mirror was a futile attempt to see anything behind the car. But I digress, that’s not the story of the evening.

The real highlight happened on the way home. As we were driving down some street in a ward in Nagoya (I’m sure that there were signs but I have no idea what they said although some might even have been in English) we noticed quite a few restaurants. While at a red stoplight – see I’m a safe GPS user – I saved the location as food street. Tanya, Charlotte (side kicks) and I decided to check out food street last night. I parked on the street and we walked around to find a restaurant. We first went in search of a Spanish restaurant that was advertised on a billboard. We walked past it two times before we noticed it on our third pass; it was closed. We then went to a French restaurant but it was a bakery. Finally, we went to a Japanese restaurant (you might argue that we should have done this in the first place since we’re in Japan …).

As you enter the restaurant, there is a wall of lockers for storing your shoes. You lock your key in the locker before heading to a table. The tables are just slightly above the floor level in a sunken part of the floor so that you are actually sitting on chairs. Imagine a square pool just big enough for a table and two benches with the table just protruding over the edge of the pool.

The food was wonderful. Even better, ordering was not a guessing game (as much as we have fun pointing to random things on the menu and asking for ebi) because our waiter spoke English! In fact, we had three waiters and two of them spoke to us in English. We spent most time talking to the one in the pictures below; he’d been to Canada and had done a working holiday in Australia. He was very nice and helpful(and tipping isn’t even done in this country). I had unagi (eel), shrimp rice balls (I’m sure that there’s a more elegant name), and cucumber slides. My friends had the shrimp rice balls and chicken wings and squid (apparently a Nagoya special). We ended our meals with the flavored ice dessert (flavor poured onto ice).

The restaurant was atmospheric. We noticed quite a few people come in around 9. We guess that it was Japanese business people (mostly men) out after a long day at work.

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Alien musings …

I’m an alien, not any alien but one that’s actually registered with my local ward in Nagoya. So what does this mean? Well, I can get a (i)phone now, a bank account, a car (in my name), a Japanese driver’s license. So basically, I can now officially exist in Japan. I have a card (like a bank card) that states this and an official seal that I can use for contracts.

To be honest, I don’t really look any different, or feel any different for that matter. Getting my GPS was more immediately rewarding as I could put in the coordinates of my home. What freedom! I am now free to get lost, knowing that I will have (English) assistance to get home (as long as the battery holds). I am trying to purchase something like a cigarette lighter for my car so that I can power my gps while driving. I was actually able to use the gps yesterday to drive to Nagoya Daigaku (university) to pick up some stuff from a sayonara sale. My microwave is off the floor and onto a table. If that’s not settled, I don’t know what is.

P.S. I didn’t blog last week but I did go to the Obon festival parking lot party at school. It’s a community event. It was fun watching the drumming and trying to follow the dances. The festival is celebrated to honor deceased ancestors (I think). I also took this dare at sushi train (local sushi restaurant) and ate this um … thing that I have now crossed off my list of edibles. More later … with pictures.

Deaf, illiterate, mute in Nagoya, Japan

Not even in Khartoum did I ever feel so much of a foreigner. I guess I spent so much of my first few weeks in Khartoum in the presence of fellow expats, and there are so many people who have some (albeit sometimes basic) knowledge of English that I never felt this alien.The good thing is, however, that I’m not stared at despite looking different.

I’m getting settled in. I started driving two days ago. It’s a good thing because bus service in my area is infrequent and the train station is quite a walk (or a $14 taxi ride) from school. I’m planning to get a GPS for my car. Those of you who’ve driven with me know how challenged I find it to determine directions.

The school itself is beautiful. As we were driven in the first time, it just rose out of the scenery on the side of a hill. The facilities are quite nice and improvements are ongoing. Orientation started today; I’m going through PYP training next week.

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My home’s slowly taking shape. I need a bit more furniture to start organizing my space. I bought an iron and a radio two days ago. I’ve figured out the iron but not the radio/alarm clock. I’m going to need help deciphering the Japanese on it. I took pictures of the rest of my appliances and got someone to help me translate them today. I’d been going on trial and error so far and although it’s more or less worked, it’s good to know what the rest of the buttons mean.

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Last night, I bought a garbage can, hangers and a drying rack for laundry. I need a few more bins for recycling. Garbage sorting is quite involved here. The cans, paper cartons, plastic bottles, plastic packaging, burnable trash and non-burnable trash all gets packaged individually. There are recycling depots for styrofoam. I figured out where to put out my garbage and recycling this morning.

I feel quite disconnected from the world. It will be almost two weeks before I can get Internet and a cell phone. I have to wait for my alien registration card. I have no tv at home either. My colleagues have been very nice however and several have offered to let me use their Internet.

I was warned before coming here that Japan is very expensive. My car was fairly cheap and my insurance cost seems reasonable.  haven’t found things too expensive here except transportation, some veggies, fruits (e.g. $12 for a pack of grapes or $4 for an apple). I’ve bought lots of fish quite inexpensively especially during the nightly markdowns at the grocery store so I’m happy about that. We’ll see how the utilities work out.

I’m happy to be here. I’m excited for the cultural opportunity and the school seems like a place where I’ll be happy to spend most of my time. This is an exciting time for me!