The day after the Sumo match consisted of preparing for Nagoya: after today I would stay at couchsurf hosts for four nights, so little chance to do laundy. So doing this in the hostel was first on the list. While waiting for the drier to finish I was also chatting with Yuko, because I would like to visit Kobe, her hometown, as well. However, by the time the laundry was finished the time windows was way too small: Yu, my couchsurf host in Osaka, would pick me up at his local station at 18:30.
So instead of going to Kobe I went into Osaka to shop for some gifts for Yu, and Nao, his wife. She has just started baking cookies (and she makes really beautiful ones) so I got her a small cookiecutter (in the shape of an elephant, too bad I couldn't find any tulips or windmills), and a bottle of wine for Yu and to share together. After that I got something to eat and did a little of people watching in Shinsaibashi and Dotonbori. These are very, very busy shopping streets for, mainly, teenage girls. This is what I mean with busy:
And since there are so many people, they also try to advertise a lot:
Because it was a weekday there were several Japanese schoolclasses in the aquarium. The Japanese are normally very quiet and reserved. For instance in the metro, where everyone is quiet, or in the supermarkt where you want to pass someone: then you just stand and wait until the person moves out of the way instead of saying something. In the Netherlands a primary school teacher would ask his children not to make too much noise and he himself would also not be shouting in a public place. However, the Japanese schoolteacher was even louder than the children themselves, he was shouting instructions, shouting explanations about the fish, shouting names, etc. Really strange to see this.
The Japanese penguins are better trained than the schoolchildren. Before they get their fish they have to be weighed, so they formed an orderly queue in front of the balance.
The whaleshark being fed. There was actually only one instead of two, and it has a skewed dorsal fin and is continually swimming circles in the too small tank. Coming back from the aquarium I think it might have been the last one I have visited... seeing the animals in their natural environment and letting seeing them be determined by fate.
Ryuji, my couchsurfing host, is also a working Japanese man, so he would pick me up at around 19:00. I used the time waiting in Nagoya for exploring the station (and the huge mall inside it) a little bit, as the weather in Nagoya was just as bad as in Osaka. A few impressions:
So instead of going to Kobe I went into Osaka to shop for some gifts for Yu, and Nao, his wife. She has just started baking cookies (and she makes really beautiful ones) so I got her a small cookiecutter (in the shape of an elephant, too bad I couldn't find any tulips or windmills), and a bottle of wine for Yu and to share together. After that I got something to eat and did a little of people watching in Shinsaibashi and Dotonbori. These are very, very busy shopping streets for, mainly, teenage girls. This is what I mean with busy:
And since there are so many people, they also try to advertise a lot:
Some more pictures can be found on picasa. They're also mainly of weird Japanese stuff again. Like people in mascotte suits to promote their products, such as this crab for a crab-sushi place:
At around 17:30 I picked up my bag from the coin-lockers in the station, to get on the local train to the sub-urb where Yu and Nao live. With some asking around I eventually got the to right train, and off at the right station as well: pfew :-). A little wait and there was Yu to pick me up.
Yu and Nao are a married couple in the end of their 20's and like to meet foreign people every now and then. It was kind of unlucky that my schedule did not allow a weekend stay, due to that Yu and Nao could only host me for one night in their busy working week, which of course is awesome. When we arrived at their apartment Nao was already cooking a really nice Japanese dish. It was 'Schol' of which I don't know the English name, and have forgotten the Japanese name. With it we had a vegetable that I didn't know (sorry, I have also forgotten its name), however it was a kind of cross between broccoli and celery, created in China. It all tasted very well!
We had a nice discussion about Nao's plan for her cookies, Yu's work as a plant design supervisor, and the state-of-the-art in 3D printing (Engineers...). We also compared Japan and the Netherlands, apparently, in the Netherlands we have 28% more off-time, and earn (GBP per person) 20% more. So this working pressure in Japan is really a huge problem, which is not even delivering anything good either! Sadly for the Japanese, no one in their political system is doing anything about it. We went to sleep quite early: Yu has to get up at around 06:30 to get to his work, and I had a busy schedule to go to the Osaka Aquarium and afterwards to Nagoya.
The morning started by once again going to the station to drop my bags in a coin-locker. However, it was now 07:30 in the morning: so right in the middle of rush-hour. This means long (orderly) queues on the station (aligned for each train door), and a squeeze inside:
At the station I dropped by small backpack into the coin-locker and went for Osaka aquarium. This was on the must-see list because they have two whale sharks there and it is apparently one of the best aquariums in the world. Most of the pictures will be in on Picasa because I don't want to bore you with a ton of fish-pictures. However, just a few striking things:
Because it was a weekday there were several Japanese schoolclasses in the aquarium. The Japanese are normally very quiet and reserved. For instance in the metro, where everyone is quiet, or in the supermarkt where you want to pass someone: then you just stand and wait until the person moves out of the way instead of saying something. In the Netherlands a primary school teacher would ask his children not to make too much noise and he himself would also not be shouting in a public place. However, the Japanese schoolteacher was even louder than the children themselves, he was shouting instructions, shouting explanations about the fish, shouting names, etc. Really strange to see this.
The Japanese penguins are better trained than the schoolchildren. Before they get their fish they have to be weighed, so they formed an orderly queue in front of the balance.
The whaleshark being fed. There was actually only one instead of two, and it has a skewed dorsal fin and is continually swimming circles in the too small tank. Coming back from the aquarium I think it might have been the last one I have visited... seeing the animals in their natural environment and letting seeing them be determined by fate.
One very cool display in the aquarium was the section with jellyfish. These are some very alien but graceful creatures! All in all I ended the visit with a mixed feeling because of the animal welfare. Especially the whale shark tank was too small, and also seeing the same dolphins we had seen in New Zealand in a small tank instead of out in the ocean, jumping out because they were enjoying the waves from the boats. The speed at which they could swim in the tank was much slower. Like I said: this is probably the last aquarium I have visited.
Even though this post is already quite long, it is far from over. After the visit to the aquarium I discussed visiting Kobe with Yuko again, but as it was a very, very rainy day, this was not a good day for sightseeing. So immediate change of plan: head to Nagoya now. Book a ticket for the Shinkansen, and off I go:
At the station in Nagoya I just wanted to store all of my luggage in a coin locker, instead of last time, when I wanted to get my small backpack out after 3 hours. Since there was only one (smaller) locker left, I had to get creative and fit all my stuff into the locker by half-unpacking lots of stuff. This is one of the key backpacker skills which I succesfully acquired:
Ryuji, my couchsurfing host, is also a working Japanese man, so he would pick me up at around 19:00. I used the time waiting in Nagoya for exploring the station (and the huge mall inside it) a little bit, as the weather in Nagoya was just as bad as in Osaka. A few impressions:
Inside the 10-story department store is a market level. Very busy, lots of fresh food: good idea to combine this.
Did I mention it was bad weather? I had a beer halfway this building on an outside terrace (with terrace heaters)
Busy meeting point in Nagoya station.
After hanging around a little at the station it was time to head for Ryuji's station. He picked me up, we dropped my bags of at the house and we went out to get some nice Japanese food. We had a good talk about, what now are, the usual subjects: career, love, cultural differences. Once again the night ended early because Ryuji had to leave at 08:00 to get to work.
All the pictures of this day here:
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