Things I Miss from Canada

I’m a little bored today, so I decided to write a post about some of the stuff I miss especially from home. I’m only talking about pretty trivial things though, not all the people I miss. Since Ryan commented that he likes pictures to appear as much as possible, I will try to include a bunch. Anyway, here is what I have so far:

Steak – Aside from Tajima Beef (which is too expensive to have more than very rarely) the beef in Japan isn’t very good. Also, it is almost always cut into really small pieces, probably to hide the fact that it isn’t a very good cut.

Beer – Specifically different kinds of beer. There are four major kinds of beer here: Asahi, Sapporo, Yebisu and Kirin. Technically they are different (Asahi is after all “Super Dry”), but it is pretty much like only having the choice between Blue and Canadian. The really weird thing is that each brewery has tons of different varieties, but each one tastes the same. Also, you can only get beer in cans, or giant bottles that are used for enkai.

Multi-lane Roads (with speed limits higher than 60 km/h) – Every road in my town is only one lane in either direction (sometimes one lane for both directions). The “major” highway is still only one lane, with three places to pass slower vehicles between Himeji and Asago. These extra lanes are about 500m long, and go up sharp inclines, so my car can’t use them.

The Snooty Fox – I really like it there.

That said, I am still happy in Japan, and I wouldn’t exactly say I am looking forward to leaving in about six months. There are plenty of things I will miss about this country when I am back in Canada, just not their roads, beer selection, or beef (or most of their food to be completely honest).

Kobe

Yesterday I went to Kobe, pretty much just for something to do. I’m going back there on Thursday for a two day conference (probably going to be really boring), but it’s pretty close so I went anyway. While I was there I saw two things that are noteworthy:

1 – Two girls (I’m guessing they were ichi nen seis) were walking in front of me sharing an iPod. Each had one earbud, so they were walking really close. Then I guess a good song came on, cause they started dancing. This dancing was limited almost entirely to one arm each though, anything more and they would have pulled out the earbud or bumped each other. I thought it was hilarious because they kept this up for about a block.

2-

There’s a Wendy’s in Kobe. While it’s not quite as good as the Canadian ones, it’s still pretty decent. They have a whole bunch of other weird stuff on the menu though, like a chili burger, and a vanilla frosty.

New Years Lessons

Since this week was the first week of classes after New Years all my classes had a section about how New Years in Canada is different than New Years in Canada. For the most part it consisted of the JTE asking students what they did, and then the JTE and students asking me about what I did this year and other years. Here are some excerpts (I’m using quotes, but this isn’t really what they said, more like what they would have said if they were fluent in English):

JTE: “Did you eat mochi on New Years?”

Me: “No”

JTE: “Did you fly a kite?”

Me: “No”

JTE: “Did you play…(makes a gesture that looks to me like badminton)?”

Me: “No”

At one point I described Western New Years, and they immediately focused on the ball drop. I think maybe I didn’t explain it well enough:

Student: “Has there ever been an accident with the ball?” (this required a lot of gesturing)Me: “Probably, but I can’t remember one”

Student: “How big is the explosion?”

Me: “What explosion?”

Student: “When the New Year ball explodes, how big is it? How many people get hurt?”

Thanks Gilligans

Today I got my first package from Canada in the mail. My sisters and Marla brought me stuff when they visited, but this was the first time I came home to find a packaged crammed into my little mail slot. So, since I don’t have your e-mails, thank you Paul, Big Mel, Little Mel, and Eamon. You made my day.

Tokyo with Marla

So Marla has gone back to Canada now, but for the week before she left we spent some time in Tokyo. I really like Tokyo, even though it is huge and crowded. Due to New Years falling right in the middle of our trip, some things were closed and inconvenient times, but we managed to keep ourselves entertained. We did a lot of shopping (unfortunately for Marla a lot of that took place in Akihabara). We ended up going to Shibuya, Harajuku, Roppongi, Ikebukuro, Ginza, and Akihabara districts, along with others that I may have forgotten. Each district is like its own city, but offers different things. Akihabara is like a giant electronics store, only with people yelling offers or deals or something at you in Japanese. We spent New Years in Shibuya, with just about every other Gaijin in Japan, but nothing actually happened. I saw a bus drive by with a countdown on the side, but Marla was too short to even see that. It was still a pretty memorable New Years though. Anyway, here are the pictures:

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