The Eternal Gaijin

From a little trip into Kobe yesterday afternoon.   In front of herbal medicine shop in Nanking Machi The sign for the Kobe Earthquake Monument at Merican Pier. The preserved pier at Merican Park, just as it was after the 1995 earthquake.   Small temple on the walk out of the Merican Park area. Little known fact, unless you read the signs. The park is a customs area, and everyone walking in or out can be subject to search and seizure.  Very odd.

There have been several contributing factors to this feeling of grumpiness. First of all is the weather. Now it's a well know fact that Canadians love talking about the weather so I have no plans on slowing myself down here. Fucking humidity. Just walking up the frakking hill to the house leaves me sweating for a half hour. Walking! You should smell me when I get back from a jog. If you want to understand what it's  like in Kobe in the summer, buy a treadmill. Put it in a steam room (push the fat Finnish guys in towels over a few seats to fit it in) Jog for half an hour or so. That's the feeling I get just checking the mail. What's that? Could I get into some details? Possibly something involving undergarments? Sure can. The sweat of just walking down to the main road, a hundred steep metres is enough to run down my back like a salty Niagara that soaks into a cotton briefs Gaspe Peninsula that gets stickily wedged into a my Northumberland Straits. And while the...

  Dotembori is one of the main entertainment districts in Osaka. It's famous for food, noise, drinking, the Kuidaore drumming robot (RIP) and, at one end, just a hint of hentai. One time the wife and I were after a bite to eat at Kuidaore and took in a bit of a stroll around the area. For those of you who haven't been, it's a lively, vibrant area with any number of drunken revellers stumbling around. Down at the end is a slightly dodgy end culminating in a small storefront that offers this sign: If you can't read that it's: Masturbation room of oncoming generation. Explain it does not what they are on coming.

Week before last my wife was struck by an idea. How about we get out of town for a few days, she suggested. It may have been to recover from the visit by the family, or that could just be how I interpreted it.  It would appear that having the little ones around can be truly draining. Her suggestion was to visit Kyushu, specifically the towns of Yufuin and Kurokawa Onsen. We also intended to climb to the top of Mt Aso, but more on that in a second. We took the shinkansen to Hakata and a local commuter train to Yufuin. I love the shinkansen. By the way, it's not a translation of bullet train; that's just the English concept. It's best translated as New (Shin) Trunk (kan) Line (sen), intended to be the rail transport backbone across Japan. The shinkansen is wonderfully comfortable, generous with leg room and may be the best form of transport on the planet. The on-board coffee leaves something to be desired, flavour mostly. At Hakata, we got on a relatively comfortable trai...

Two days ago the Japanese Government 's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) knocked a local language school chain with a suspension of operations - specifically they are not allowed to engage in any new long-term contracts for 6 months while they restructure their entire contract system. This could be a really big blow and knock the giant of the industry here back on it's heels opening the market for a more vibrant set of choices or even be a death blow depending on the state of the finances of NOVA. NOVA is the largest of the chain language schools here and has always had a bad time in public relations. This is a combination of mildly stingy conditions, some PR mis-steps and just being the biggest target. I still have a couple of friends working there and it's obvious that everything is not sunshine and cotton-candy, it's also not a bad place to work. Whatever you read in the notice boards and blogs, make sure you have a shaker of salt handy. All of this ri...

It's hard to describe the walk up from Okamoto Station to our house. Steep. Basically the hill is varying grades of steep to steeper so we've got a walk of about 15 minutes up and about 8 minutes down, which illustrates the degree of work getting up. So far I've found it to be good exercise although it's a disincentive to going and picking up one little thing from the store. I'll show you what I mean... Coming out of Okamoto Station: So you turn to the right and walk down the street to the level crossing. Then the hill starts: The bridge on the right is where the inoshishi can be seen from time to time. None of this has been the steep bit. Moving on. This shrine is one-third of the way down the hill, but only one third of the way up: So here we go into the steeper bit... Now comes the part that's really difficult. This is where you really earn your beer when you get home. And there's the dog waiting for me to come back with a bit of kibble. Keep in mind, I s...