Aha! I have some free time while firing emails about renting an apartment back and forth.
So, first off, I have found a seemingly nice place that I will go see tomorrow (probably) in Chiba, kind of half way in between where I am now and Tokyo, for 55,000 yen a month, which includes everything, including internet! 55,000 yen is about 520-530 bucks. That's very cheap around here :).
Anyways, I haven't really had a chance to blog a large one in quite a while, so once again, I'll use pictures to show where I've been, and then I'll explain a couple things about Japan in general at the request of specific peoples.
That was the view from Tateyama, at the very bottom of Chiba Prefecture. It was VERY nice there. Just a little bit inland it was like walking back in time. Everyone had a farm of some sort, and was collecting from it with those baskets on their back, as if it was out of a movie. It was very neat, all the buildings were old, the scenery was beautiful. However, I thought I was going to be going back to where I came from in a similar kind of area... so I didn't take pictures >.<. Nope, instead... I decided to walk TWENTY EIGHT KILOMETERS that day. Yup! My legs were sore after that :)
The ocean down there was WARM. Now, I don't usually go swimming in lakes or oceans... I'm very sensitive to water temperature, so even decently warm water feels cold to me; very cold. However, if I had a bathing suit.... I would have swam in this water... in November... It was so warm.... And just 100 kilometers north, at the Ocean where I live now... the water is freezing. Very interesting in my opinion.
Here are more pictures: here.
I did take two more videos, one of which is too large to put up on the web, and the other.... FOR SOME reason youtube isn't letting it work. It says 'failed', with no reason... retarded. So ya... annoying... cause it was a really neat video.
So! As for a few things on life here in Japan! First of all, to answer a certain someones question on the makeup of the wards of cities here in Japan.
In Japan, you have a Prefecture, exactly like our provinces. Some Prefectures are subdivided in to sub-prefectures (shichou). I say some, because not all of them have sub-prefectures. Sub-prefectures are more used to help govern large areas in which there are no major cities, such as in remote areas of Japan. Sub-prefectures are usually not included in addresses.
There are also 'Designated Cities' (seirei-shitei-toshi). These are major cities with a population of over 500,000 or have a significant impact on industrial work in Japan. They govern everything that is inside of their area. Inside of that area, there can be more cities, villages, towns, etc... Quite often, a city like this can cover MASSIVE amounts of area. Usually a good 100 kilometers. Tokyo does not have any of these cities (I'll explain later).
There are also then districts (gun) that have almost no governing authority. However, they are used for mailing addresses. A district is similar to United States, Counties.
Moving down in to the municipal level, we have 'core' cities (chuokaku-shi), 'special' cities (tokurei-shi), and cities (shi). The 'core' cities are the 'downtowns' of Canada. Downtown Vancouver would be Vancouver-chuo. The chuo suffix denoting that it is a core city. The rest of Vancouver might be just Vancouver-shi (City of Vancouver)
Inside of those cities, we have wards (ku), towns (chou and machi), and villages (son and mura). Note that these can also be directly from a prefecture itself instead of inside a larger city, similar to in Canada. A ward can be thought of as something like West Quesnel. While its all still Quesnel, us Quesnelians almost consider it a completely different area. Although wards have full governing over themselves and their smaller parts, such as chou and machi. So yes, wards, or cities, have towns and villages inside of them. Towns and villages should be more thought of as neighbourhoods. For example, the place I live in now, has this exact address (ken is the suffix for prefecture).
Japan, Chiba-ken, Chiba-shi, Midori-ku, Ochi-chou, and then the numbered address.
So, that means, in the Country of Japan, inside the prefecture of Chiba, inside the city of Chiba (Chiba city is very large, and I THINK is a core city, although the suffixes are the same for core cities and regular cities), inside of the ward called Midori (We consider Midori as a city itself here), inside the 'town' of Ochi (Ochi is more of a neighbourhood).
Tokyo Prefecture is a unique prefecture. It is the only prefecture to have the suffix 'to' (Toukyou-to) (oh ya, by the way, It's not Tokyo, its Toukyou). 'to' means Metropolis. So yes, ALL of Tokyo Prefecture is actually a city. A super massive couple hundred kilometer city. The city is divided in to wards (ku). In Tokyo though.. the wards have the same amount of government power as regular cities. In fact, the wards are larger than most of the cities in Toukyou-to. The wards are near the center of what the imaginary 'tokyo city' would be, while the cities (shi) are near the outer reaches of Toukyou-to.
I hope that clears things a bit :)
Uh, now what else...
Oh yes, food. I've been specifically told by my Mom to say that I eat apples with a fork in Japan, not with my fingers. We cut them and use little forks... I don't find it that crazy... but my Mom does... so whatever :).
Everyone sits on the floor here, even though there is a couch... The floor is just comfy here. (We do use the couch though sometimes :) ).
Family is HUGE here, therefore, unlike what my brother does all the time and just sits downstairs... :)... we are always sitting around in our little living room, drinking tea, watching TV, and talking with eachother all the time. Most Japanese families do this. And since around Tokyo, you're gone to work from 8 to 8, you don't have lots of time to socialize with your family, so you use the time you have very well.
Yes, I have not really used a fork in a month, ohashi (お箸) all the way (chopsticks).
It's freezing in these houses. Why? Yes, I know the temperature isn't that cold outside (10-17 degrees still), however, there is no insulation in the house, and no heaters :). This means that inside the house goes down to 10 degrees :P. So we like our heated room (the living room and kitchen) which has a 'portable' heater in it that plugs in to the wall. We also like our tea and coffee :).
Contrary to popular belief, Tokyo is actually a pretty cheap place to eat. You can buy VERY good and VERY good quality Udon, Soba, Ramen, Sushi, and other various meals for under 8 dollars. Yes, 8, a full dinner, 8 bucks, in downtown Tokyo. :) And you'll be full after that dinner, and its really good.
Of course... you COULD go the expensive root for some REALLY good food (which I have done a few times).
I think thats all for now! I should be in my new place next time I blog. I'll have pics and stuff of course :)
2007/11/30
2007/11/21
A Little Break
So I probably won't be able to do another major blog post for at least a week or so... as I will be VERY busy finding a new place to live!
The family I'm staying with right now's father (90 years old) must move in here, and therefore I must find another place.
This is fine with me, obviously as the elderly's well being is most certainly more important than me :) Also it's fine as it adds spice to things once again here in Japan.
So tomorrow I'm heading out to Tokyo to start searching for a place!
I DID upload new pictures to the picasa albums site, under Mitake. I will explain that trip later, when I once again have time, and probably will be inside my new house.
The family I'm staying with right now's father (90 years old) must move in here, and therefore I must find another place.
This is fine with me, obviously as the elderly's well being is most certainly more important than me :) Also it's fine as it adds spice to things once again here in Japan.
So tomorrow I'm heading out to Tokyo to start searching for a place!
I DID upload new pictures to the picasa albums site, under Mitake. I will explain that trip later, when I once again have time, and probably will be inside my new house.
2007/11/16
A nice, but Long Day of Walking!
Well, this blog entry is talking about what happened on November 14th (２００７年１１月 14日（水）) (For the person interested... and for the people that can see Japanese fonts, notice the （水）after the date. That is the day of the week without the rest of the Kanji. (sui for Wednesday). They almost always have day of the week in brackets at the end of a date in TV or advertisements, etc...)
Also, please note there there is one more blog, one entry below this one that you might not have read yet. It was written today as well.
Ok! I had 2.5 hours of sleep.... Thats how I started that day.... Joy...
However, I got sleep in a park in Tokyo... so its ok. (It's ok, its normal for people to sleep in the park, not just homeless people, but buisness people too. If you're tired, you rest :) ) However, that was only an hour or so. So when I was finished (rudely awakened by having to go to washroom...) it was 11時30分 (11:30 AM). I began my usual wandering. This time, I had a location to get to though; The last two major wards of Tokyo, Ueno and Asakusa. I eventually got there... quite hungry, and keeping an eye out for a place to eat. I didn't want to spend lots of money that day though, so I decided to find a seven eleven (yes, they are EVERYWHERE here). Seven 11's have good food in Japan :D.
While looking, I took my first picture of Ueno, you can find the Ueno pics here in the Tokyo album, they and the Asakusa ones are at the top of the list of pictures.
Ueno was neat, first off, I walked through a set of streets that were shopping streets. They were walking streets, as many are here (no major roads, you just walk, no sidewalks, but cars are allowed to still go through). There were many different kinds of shops... like... every kind, and there were thousands of them. It was quite neat. There were also HUNDREDS of Pachinko Slot buildings (a kind of slot machine gambling). Pachinko is very popular here in Japan... But in this part of Ueno.. it was ridiculous.
It took me 30 minutes or so to find a 7 11. Which is odd in Japan... That was a long time. I got my lunch, and began walking to find a place to eat.
I found it right away. Ueno Park. What a beautiful place. You can see it in the pics. It reminded me of Stanley Park in a way. Meaning the Ducks, Pidgins, crows, etc... were VERY friendly, and there was thousands of them. The park had a lake in the center of it, and you could rend row boats for a romantic float on the lake. Of course, since I was alone... I didn't go on it... There was also strange and large plants in the water. A whole FIELD of them across the whole lake. You can see that in the pictures. I also found turtles! Wild ones! I've never seen wild ones before in my life... There were warning signs around warning of Snap Jaw turtles (at least I assume thats what it was translated as). They said don't go near them, because they bite HARD. But I didn't see one :(.
It was just after I left the park when I saw it... Something I didn't expect to see there. A sign saying (cept in Japanese, which I read with no help! Woot because of the Kanji), "Left 2 kilometers to Tokyo University". (Here's the Japanese: 東京大学 左2キロ )
Why is this interesting? Because Tokyo University, or Toudai as some say here (It's Todai because of how you say it in Japanese; Toukyou Daigaku), was one of the major object in the first manga (a kind of comic story, but for any age, VERY popular in Japan) that I read, Love Hina. Love Hina was one of the things that got me interested in Japan. They had pictures (drawn of course) of Toudai in the manga, and I was now determined to find that exact same building they used in the manga. It took me about 2 hours to find Toudai... cause I took a wrong turn. Oops, but oh well, cause when I do that I always find neat things in backstreets. By the way, Ueno also has HUNDREDS of smaller temples of both Shintou and Buddhist religion. That was neat.
Toudai was neat. I did find it. And its kind of small compared to say... UBC. But it has old style buildings in it... Kinda made me feel like I was walking around Hogwarts in Harry Potter... Anyways, here is the picture I went there for :) right here
Eventually I made it to my next destination, Asakusa. Asakusa has many old Edo age (1600's to 1900) buildings and shops. Mostly shops though (like, the stuff in them was old), because of various earthquakes and fires over time destroyed everything. Still, Asakusa has many neat shops. There was also a Buddhist Temple that is still being run by a direct family member to the person who founded it in the 1600's. There is also the famous temple that all the tourist go see. Here is a video of that temple:
It was neat. Especially the strip mall just outside of it, which had EVERYTHING you could imagine for souvenirs... Lucky I'm not the kind of person that buys everything I see :).
I then walked.... back to Akihabara.....
Thats about 3 kilometers...
I had already been walking from 11:30 AM to 4:30 PM straight....
I was tired after that walk...
It only took me about an hour though.
Ya, so that was that day! I walked for 7 hours total that day... I'm getting in good shape.... cause the next day I walked even more... I'll blog about that soon as well.
Also, please note there there is one more blog, one entry below this one that you might not have read yet. It was written today as well.
Ok! I had 2.5 hours of sleep.... Thats how I started that day.... Joy...
However, I got sleep in a park in Tokyo... so its ok. (It's ok, its normal for people to sleep in the park, not just homeless people, but buisness people too. If you're tired, you rest :) ) However, that was only an hour or so. So when I was finished (rudely awakened by having to go to washroom...) it was 11時30分 (11:30 AM). I began my usual wandering. This time, I had a location to get to though; The last two major wards of Tokyo, Ueno and Asakusa. I eventually got there... quite hungry, and keeping an eye out for a place to eat. I didn't want to spend lots of money that day though, so I decided to find a seven eleven (yes, they are EVERYWHERE here). Seven 11's have good food in Japan :D.
While looking, I took my first picture of Ueno, you can find the Ueno pics here in the Tokyo album, they and the Asakusa ones are at the top of the list of pictures.
Ueno was neat, first off, I walked through a set of streets that were shopping streets. They were walking streets, as many are here (no major roads, you just walk, no sidewalks, but cars are allowed to still go through). There were many different kinds of shops... like... every kind, and there were thousands of them. It was quite neat. There were also HUNDREDS of Pachinko Slot buildings (a kind of slot machine gambling). Pachinko is very popular here in Japan... But in this part of Ueno.. it was ridiculous.
It took me 30 minutes or so to find a 7 11. Which is odd in Japan... That was a long time. I got my lunch, and began walking to find a place to eat.
I found it right away. Ueno Park. What a beautiful place. You can see it in the pics. It reminded me of Stanley Park in a way. Meaning the Ducks, Pidgins, crows, etc... were VERY friendly, and there was thousands of them. The park had a lake in the center of it, and you could rend row boats for a romantic float on the lake. Of course, since I was alone... I didn't go on it... There was also strange and large plants in the water. A whole FIELD of them across the whole lake. You can see that in the pictures. I also found turtles! Wild ones! I've never seen wild ones before in my life... There were warning signs around warning of Snap Jaw turtles (at least I assume thats what it was translated as). They said don't go near them, because they bite HARD. But I didn't see one :(.
It was just after I left the park when I saw it... Something I didn't expect to see there. A sign saying (cept in Japanese, which I read with no help! Woot because of the Kanji), "Left 2 kilometers to Tokyo University". (Here's the Japanese: 東京大学 左2キロ )
Why is this interesting? Because Tokyo University, or Toudai as some say here (It's Todai because of how you say it in Japanese; Toukyou Daigaku), was one of the major object in the first manga (a kind of comic story, but for any age, VERY popular in Japan) that I read, Love Hina. Love Hina was one of the things that got me interested in Japan. They had pictures (drawn of course) of Toudai in the manga, and I was now determined to find that exact same building they used in the manga. It took me about 2 hours to find Toudai... cause I took a wrong turn. Oops, but oh well, cause when I do that I always find neat things in backstreets. By the way, Ueno also has HUNDREDS of smaller temples of both Shintou and Buddhist religion. That was neat.
Toudai was neat. I did find it. And its kind of small compared to say... UBC. But it has old style buildings in it... Kinda made me feel like I was walking around Hogwarts in Harry Potter... Anyways, here is the picture I went there for :) right here
Eventually I made it to my next destination, Asakusa. Asakusa has many old Edo age (1600's to 1900) buildings and shops. Mostly shops though (like, the stuff in them was old), because of various earthquakes and fires over time destroyed everything. Still, Asakusa has many neat shops. There was also a Buddhist Temple that is still being run by a direct family member to the person who founded it in the 1600's. There is also the famous temple that all the tourist go see. Here is a video of that temple:
It was neat. Especially the strip mall just outside of it, which had EVERYTHING you could imagine for souvenirs... Lucky I'm not the kind of person that buys everything I see :).
I then walked.... back to Akihabara.....
Thats about 3 kilometers...
I had already been walking from 11:30 AM to 4:30 PM straight....
I was tired after that walk...
It only took me about an hour though.
Ya, so that was that day! I walked for 7 hours total that day... I'm getting in good shape.... cause the next day I walked even more... I'll blog about that soon as well.
Answering Questions
Ok ok.
Several of you have asked questions, here are answers.
Most common question. Where is my bed?
?
You didn't see it? Thats it in the corner!
See it? The pink things folded up there by the window...
It's a real futon mattress. The blankets are in the closet.
Every night, I set up my bed. Every morning, I unset it. :)
Next question!
What have I been eating?
Food!
ok, next question...
:) huh? Oh, more detail than that, I see...
Well first off, I have not used a fork and knife since I left Canada! Yay! Second, I've gotten used to slurping noodles. Third, the tea here is great!
As for what kind of food... Let's see.... It would be impressive if I could remember all if any of the names of them... but generally...
1: Rice EVERY day, with EVERY dinner.
2: Udon noodles. Oh how I love them :D Various flavours.
3: Osoba (soba). Had this once...
4: Sushi. Only had this twice. But dang its good here.
5: Lots of various ways to eat Pork. They do with pork what Canadians do with beef.
6: A decent amount of eggs. And neat things they do here with eggs.... Like putting sugar in them and stuff....
7: Lots of red beans! They are sweet, and like a snack or desert.
8: Lots of mandrine oranges.
9: Lots of vegies.
10: Lots of bread (which is VERY expensive here, but REALLY good)
11: Lots of yogurt.
12: There are many more... of which I don't remember.
13: Nevermind, how could I forget... RAMAN! mmmmmm.
14: Anyways, everybody here has been trying to find things that I CAN'T eat. They have been unsuccessful :D. Apparently, my stomach is Japanese. おなかは日本製です.
I'm sure I've forgotten some questions.... lol, just post them in the comments for this post... I'll answer them asap.
Several of you have asked questions, here are answers.
Most common question. Where is my bed?
?
You didn't see it? Thats it in the corner!
See it? The pink things folded up there by the window...
It's a real futon mattress. The blankets are in the closet.
Every night, I set up my bed. Every morning, I unset it. :)
Next question!
What have I been eating?
Food!
ok, next question...
:) huh? Oh, more detail than that, I see...
Well first off, I have not used a fork and knife since I left Canada! Yay! Second, I've gotten used to slurping noodles. Third, the tea here is great!
As for what kind of food... Let's see.... It would be impressive if I could remember all if any of the names of them... but generally...
1: Rice EVERY day, with EVERY dinner.
2: Udon noodles. Oh how I love them :D Various flavours.
3: Osoba (soba). Had this once...
4: Sushi. Only had this twice. But dang its good here.
5: Lots of various ways to eat Pork. They do with pork what Canadians do with beef.
6: A decent amount of eggs. And neat things they do here with eggs.... Like putting sugar in them and stuff....
7: Lots of red beans! They are sweet, and like a snack or desert.
8: Lots of mandrine oranges.
9: Lots of vegies.
10: Lots of bread (which is VERY expensive here, but REALLY good)
11: Lots of yogurt.
12: There are many more... of which I don't remember.
13: Nevermind, how could I forget... RAMAN! mmmmmm.
14: Anyways, everybody here has been trying to find things that I CAN'T eat. They have been unsuccessful :D. Apparently, my stomach is Japanese. おなかは日本製です.
I'm sure I've forgotten some questions.... lol, just post them in the comments for this post... I'll answer them asap.
2007/11/13
The movies!
Today I went and saw The Bourne Ultimatum in theaters. It just came out here a couple days ago. Good thing it was still in English :) But with Japanese subtitles. Anyways, I've seen it before, but thats ok.
So in Japan, you actually get assigned seats for movie theaters! Which is interesting, because you can also reserve seats as well. hehe. Also, the lights don't turn on again after the movie until the WHOLE movie is done, meaning you have to watch the credits.
Just a couple interesting things. :)
So in Japan, you actually get assigned seats for movie theaters! Which is interesting, because you can also reserve seats as well. hehe. Also, the lights don't turn on again after the movie until the WHOLE movie is done, meaning you have to watch the credits.
Just a couple interesting things. :)
Welcome To Nippon!
Well, I have finally gotten sat down, uploaded all the pictures, videos, and comments, and am starting this blog! Here I will keep a little journal of what I do in Japan, explaining things about Japan, showing you pictures of everything and even some videos.
IMPORTANT!!!
Bookmark these two sites!
http://picasaweb.google.com/parrott.jason
http://ca.youtube.com/profile?user=Moncader
The first is my pictures album that will and does have ALL my pictures of Japan on it, you can view them in a slide show or just picture by picture. They are arranged by location. Every single picture has a comment explaining the picture. Therefore, I will not be posting all my pictures here on this blog. Instead, if this blog NEEDS to make a reference to a picture, I will point it to my album instead. (There will be a 'click here' kind of thing that you can click on to see it ).
The second is my YouTube homepage, it will have my videos on it. However, unlike pictures, I will probably make links or embed the video right inside this blog. But the above link will give you quick and easy access to a video in case you want to find it again at a later time.
This particular post will be very long... as it's already been 1 week 6 days since I arrived here... But I'll start now.
October 29, 2007 : ２００７年 １０月 ２９日
Today was the day I left Canada. My plane flight left from Vancouver to San Fransisco, transfer planes, and head off to Narita International Airport. Of course, my plane leaving Vancouver was delayed a bit... and I had 20 minutes to run from my arrival gate in San Fransisco to my departure (on the other side of the airport, which was a 13 or so minute walk anyways) gate for Japan. Of course, and obviously, I made it just fine :).
You can find a picture of what the sky looked like that day on my airplaneShots album here.
October 30, 2007 : ２００７年 １０月 ３０日
Since I crossed the international date line... I skipped a day :)
I must say, traveling for 19 hours with no real break sucks... Never done it before, and not looking forward to it again... Especially when the plane that you're on for 10 hours doesn't exactly have a lot of room... I also had a window seat, which I thought was great! However, I soon after takeoff from San Fransisco found out that the Pacific Ocean isn't much to look at ;). I also found out that you have to move 2 other people that just might be sleeping just to get up and stretch or go to washroom or access your backpack. *sigh * Oh well, it's all done now.
I arrived in Japan at 3:30 PM (Japan time now). Met with the people I am staying with (who are, btw, Asako and her sister and parents. Asako is the person I lived with in Burnaby, Canada for several months. Her parents graciously offered their home for me to stay in while I'm Japan. )
Along the drive back to my new home (it took about an hour), I was able to get the first glance of Japan, and the hundreds of differences. The first thing I noticed? The cars are small. Very small. Little things, I'd imagine they are similar in Europe... But later on I found out why they are so small.... They need to fit in to VERY small parking spaces... And they always reverse stall park. Therefore, the backs of the cars are always flat, and quite often, even in parking lots, there are little bars at the back of the stall so that you know when you are just far enough to put it in park (meaning you are supposed to back up IN to the bar :) )
The roads are very small, tight, cramped, and tiny as well. They're 2 lane roads are the same size as our one lane. It was quite scary at first, and for the first while. However, I'm much more at ease with that now.
Of course, everything is backwards as well... You drive on the left side of the road, that was REALLY messing me up when I sit in the front seat.
Of course, everything is in metric in Japan, which is good. An interesting thing is that where in Canada we have signs on the side of the road... quite often in Japan they have 'signs' or just text on the ground, on the pavement.
Traffic lights kinda suck here. They are all time based, not pressure or pedestrian based. This means long waiting times when no one is coming in the other direction.
We stopped at a grocery store to get some groceries first... That was even interesting as I was taller than many of the shelves... and there was no gaijin (foreigners ) anywhere. However, I was happy, as I got my bottled cold green tea. Yup, pop is not nearly as popular as bottled tea of cold coffee here :) You get them in vending machines everywhere (more on that later).
We got home, and I was introduced to my new room (picture here ). I live in Chiba-shi (a Prefecture, or Province), Midori-ku (the city of Midori), Ochi-cho (the 'neighbourhood' of Ochi). In Japanese, if you have Japanese fonts installed on your computer, it looks like this: 千葉市緑区越智著 (If all you see is ??? or a bunch of squares, then you don't have Japanese fonts installed on your computer). You can see all the pictures of Chiba (which is a VERY nice, green, luscious, peaceful and quite place) here. I'm probably the first ever Canadian to set my feet down in Ochi-cho :) Possibly the first ever gaijin (foreigner) to be here.
October 31, 2007 until November 12, 2007 : ２００７年 １０月 ３１日から ２００７年 １１月 １２日まで
Ok, since there has been too many days to remember when everything happened, I'm just going to say everything that happened by location instead of date up until today, which is November 12th, 2007.
Chiba-shi | 千葉市.
Chiba is a wonderful place. Very green, lots of plant life (Bamboo trees for the win!), HUGE bees and very large spiders, birds that sound like they're crying out in pain when they chirp (it's quite scary at first), rice fields everywhere, mountains, rivers, creeks, big fish, nice weather, Disney Land (of which I'm going to soon, on my birthday this Saturday :D ), ancient Buddhist Temples and Shrines.
Chiba is also the location of Narita, the main international airport for Japan, yes, its NOT in Tokyo like most people think.
Chiba is pretty difficult to describe through words actually... It's mostly scenery here, not so much activities that you can do, so head over to the Chiba pictures here. They are all commented and will explain things quite well. (I'm also lazy and I'm itching to do other things, so I'm moving things along quicker :P hehe). Sadly, for some odd reason... youtube won't allow my 2 chiba video's I had to upload. And it's not giving me a reason, just says 'failed'. Great help there. If I can get them to work later, I'll tell you.
Tokyo | 東京.
Tokyo is a very neat place. It's VERY big, VERY busy, and has a VERY efficient transportation system. I'll first point you to the pictures right here. I'd also like to point out right away that yes, while there IS English in Tokyo, especially near or on the train system, there actually aren't very many English speaking people there (at least not publicly). Japan is a Japanese (nihongo or 日本語. Nihon, or Nippon means Japan, adding the go means language, so Nihongo is Japan Language, or Japanese :) ) speaking country, not at all English like lots of people think.
The transportation system is excellent like I said. If you want to go somewhere, anywhere in Tokyo, you can be there with one train ride and either a 3 minute bus ride or 10-15 minute walk (I choose the walking... I like to walk... actually... I've WALKED around most of Tokyo......)
Tokyo is quite smoggy. It's not noticeable when IN Tokyo, but it is when you are flying around it, or up on the skyscrapers at viewing Tokyo from high, like in this video from on top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building:
Apparently, on a clear day, you can see Mount Fuji (藤山) quite well, but not that day :).
Here is a video of that building, but from the ground. It's really big, the videos nor pictures do it justice sadly... I need to find out how to make buildings look big in photos...
Tokyo is divided in to smaller cities or wards. Technically, there is no 'city' Tokyo, just a bunch of wards that make up Tokyo. Tokyo is also the name of the whole Prefecture (province). I've visited most of the wards near the main area of Tokyo, just two left and I'll see those in a day or two. Shibuya is rediculous, as shown in this video:
That was Asako (朝子) at the beginning :) and of course me at the end ;)
Tokyo is quite neat as well in that it's NOT at ALL just cityscape and grey. There are MANY parks, forests, temples, shrines, lakes and streams inside it. Take Mitaka City (once again, a ward of Tokyo) for example, Asako's Grandpa lives there, and we visit there once a week and stay over night on Wednesdays until Thursday. Here are links to some pictures: here, er, and I just realized that I have not taken enough photos of Mitaka... I'll come back and make a post about Mitaka when I go back there again in a few days...
Kamakura is not part of Tokyo, its quite far south of it. I went there with Yumi, who I originally met in Canada as well through Asako. Yumi and I went and saw the whole town (she was my tour guide). Saw several Buddhist Temples and Shrines, a nice beach to open ocean, and just nice scenery all around. There are several pics in the Tokyo album here.
Please look at the rest of the pictures on Tokyo for more explanations of what it's all about. This post is quite long already and I probably shouldn't explain more of whats already explained in the comments of the photos. However, I will point out one last picture...
This one.
Don't you think it looks either not real or from the future? I think so.... it was really neat. That tower belongs to DoCoMo, Japans largest Cell Phone company. Which btw, cell phones are insane here, I'll make another post on that later, when I have my own :) (I applied for alien registration today, and it takes a few weeks to process that, and THEN I can get my phone).
Hope you enjoyed this first post! I'll be posting more often now.... Every few days (I should anyways, now that I've finally started this thing).
IMPORTANT!!!
Bookmark these two sites!
http://picasaweb.google.com/parrott.jason
http://ca.youtube.com/profile?user=Moncader
The first is my pictures album that will and does have ALL my pictures of Japan on it, you can view them in a slide show or just picture by picture. They are arranged by location. Every single picture has a comment explaining the picture. Therefore, I will not be posting all my pictures here on this blog. Instead, if this blog NEEDS to make a reference to a picture, I will point it to my album instead. (There will be a 'click here' kind of thing that you can click on to see it ).
The second is my YouTube homepage, it will have my videos on it. However, unlike pictures, I will probably make links or embed the video right inside this blog. But the above link will give you quick and easy access to a video in case you want to find it again at a later time.
This particular post will be very long... as it's already been 1 week 6 days since I arrived here... But I'll start now.
October 29, 2007 : ２００７年 １０月 ２９日
Today was the day I left Canada. My plane flight left from Vancouver to San Fransisco, transfer planes, and head off to Narita International Airport. Of course, my plane leaving Vancouver was delayed a bit... and I had 20 minutes to run from my arrival gate in San Fransisco to my departure (on the other side of the airport, which was a 13 or so minute walk anyways) gate for Japan. Of course, and obviously, I made it just fine :).
You can find a picture of what the sky looked like that day on my airplaneShots album here.
October 30, 2007 : ２００７年 １０月 ３０日
Since I crossed the international date line... I skipped a day :)
I must say, traveling for 19 hours with no real break sucks... Never done it before, and not looking forward to it again... Especially when the plane that you're on for 10 hours doesn't exactly have a lot of room... I also had a window seat, which I thought was great! However, I soon after takeoff from San Fransisco found out that the Pacific Ocean isn't much to look at ;). I also found out that you have to move 2 other people that just might be sleeping just to get up and stretch or go to washroom or access your backpack. *sigh * Oh well, it's all done now.
I arrived in Japan at 3:30 PM (Japan time now). Met with the people I am staying with (who are, btw, Asako and her sister and parents. Asako is the person I lived with in Burnaby, Canada for several months. Her parents graciously offered their home for me to stay in while I'm Japan. )
Along the drive back to my new home (it took about an hour), I was able to get the first glance of Japan, and the hundreds of differences. The first thing I noticed? The cars are small. Very small. Little things, I'd imagine they are similar in Europe... But later on I found out why they are so small.... They need to fit in to VERY small parking spaces... And they always reverse stall park. Therefore, the backs of the cars are always flat, and quite often, even in parking lots, there are little bars at the back of the stall so that you know when you are just far enough to put it in park (meaning you are supposed to back up IN to the bar :) )
The roads are very small, tight, cramped, and tiny as well. They're 2 lane roads are the same size as our one lane. It was quite scary at first, and for the first while. However, I'm much more at ease with that now.
Of course, everything is backwards as well... You drive on the left side of the road, that was REALLY messing me up when I sit in the front seat.
Of course, everything is in metric in Japan, which is good. An interesting thing is that where in Canada we have signs on the side of the road... quite often in Japan they have 'signs' or just text on the ground, on the pavement.
Traffic lights kinda suck here. They are all time based, not pressure or pedestrian based. This means long waiting times when no one is coming in the other direction.
We stopped at a grocery store to get some groceries first... That was even interesting as I was taller than many of the shelves... and there was no gaijin (foreigners ) anywhere. However, I was happy, as I got my bottled cold green tea. Yup, pop is not nearly as popular as bottled tea of cold coffee here :) You get them in vending machines everywhere (more on that later).
We got home, and I was introduced to my new room (picture here ). I live in Chiba-shi (a Prefecture, or Province), Midori-ku (the city of Midori), Ochi-cho (the 'neighbourhood' of Ochi). In Japanese, if you have Japanese fonts installed on your computer, it looks like this: 千葉市緑区越智著 (If all you see is ??? or a bunch of squares, then you don't have Japanese fonts installed on your computer). You can see all the pictures of Chiba (which is a VERY nice, green, luscious, peaceful and quite place) here. I'm probably the first ever Canadian to set my feet down in Ochi-cho :) Possibly the first ever gaijin (foreigner) to be here.
October 31, 2007 until November 12, 2007 : ２００７年 １０月 ３１日から ２００７年 １１月 １２日まで
Ok, since there has been too many days to remember when everything happened, I'm just going to say everything that happened by location instead of date up until today, which is November 12th, 2007.
Chiba-shi | 千葉市.
Chiba is a wonderful place. Very green, lots of plant life (Bamboo trees for the win!), HUGE bees and very large spiders, birds that sound like they're crying out in pain when they chirp (it's quite scary at first), rice fields everywhere, mountains, rivers, creeks, big fish, nice weather, Disney Land (of which I'm going to soon, on my birthday this Saturday :D ), ancient Buddhist Temples and Shrines.
Chiba is also the location of Narita, the main international airport for Japan, yes, its NOT in Tokyo like most people think.
Chiba is pretty difficult to describe through words actually... It's mostly scenery here, not so much activities that you can do, so head over to the Chiba pictures here. They are all commented and will explain things quite well. (I'm also lazy and I'm itching to do other things, so I'm moving things along quicker :P hehe). Sadly, for some odd reason... youtube won't allow my 2 chiba video's I had to upload. And it's not giving me a reason, just says 'failed'. Great help there. If I can get them to work later, I'll tell you.
Tokyo | 東京.
Tokyo is a very neat place. It's VERY big, VERY busy, and has a VERY efficient transportation system. I'll first point you to the pictures right here. I'd also like to point out right away that yes, while there IS English in Tokyo, especially near or on the train system, there actually aren't very many English speaking people there (at least not publicly). Japan is a Japanese (nihongo or 日本語. Nihon, or Nippon means Japan, adding the go means language, so Nihongo is Japan Language, or Japanese :) ) speaking country, not at all English like lots of people think.
The transportation system is excellent like I said. If you want to go somewhere, anywhere in Tokyo, you can be there with one train ride and either a 3 minute bus ride or 10-15 minute walk (I choose the walking... I like to walk... actually... I've WALKED around most of Tokyo......)
Tokyo is quite smoggy. It's not noticeable when IN Tokyo, but it is when you are flying around it, or up on the skyscrapers at viewing Tokyo from high, like in this video from on top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building:
Apparently, on a clear day, you can see Mount Fuji (藤山) quite well, but not that day :).
Here is a video of that building, but from the ground. It's really big, the videos nor pictures do it justice sadly... I need to find out how to make buildings look big in photos...
Tokyo is divided in to smaller cities or wards. Technically, there is no 'city' Tokyo, just a bunch of wards that make up Tokyo. Tokyo is also the name of the whole Prefecture (province). I've visited most of the wards near the main area of Tokyo, just two left and I'll see those in a day or two. Shibuya is rediculous, as shown in this video:
That was Asako (朝子) at the beginning :) and of course me at the end ;)
Tokyo is quite neat as well in that it's NOT at ALL just cityscape and grey. There are MANY parks, forests, temples, shrines, lakes and streams inside it. Take Mitaka City (once again, a ward of Tokyo) for example, Asako's Grandpa lives there, and we visit there once a week and stay over night on Wednesdays until Thursday. Here are links to some pictures: here, er, and I just realized that I have not taken enough photos of Mitaka... I'll come back and make a post about Mitaka when I go back there again in a few days...
Kamakura is not part of Tokyo, its quite far south of it. I went there with Yumi, who I originally met in Canada as well through Asako. Yumi and I went and saw the whole town (she was my tour guide). Saw several Buddhist Temples and Shrines, a nice beach to open ocean, and just nice scenery all around. There are several pics in the Tokyo album here.
Please look at the rest of the pictures on Tokyo for more explanations of what it's all about. This post is quite long already and I probably shouldn't explain more of whats already explained in the comments of the photos. However, I will point out one last picture...
This one.
Don't you think it looks either not real or from the future? I think so.... it was really neat. That tower belongs to DoCoMo, Japans largest Cell Phone company. Which btw, cell phones are insane here, I'll make another post on that later, when I have my own :) (I applied for alien registration today, and it takes a few weeks to process that, and THEN I can get my phone).
Hope you enjoyed this first post! I'll be posting more often now.... Every few days (I should anyways, now that I've finally started this thing).
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