Tottori

So Nick and I leave on Friday for Tottori to do the net fishing ceremony that JST does every year. We had no idea what was going to happen this weekend. Many of our co-workers have remained quite after asking many of them what types of things we would be doing that day. I just had a feeling that I should be ready for fish this weekend! One thing that I will never get used to is the driver seat being on the right side of the car. I am so used to standing near the American shotgun seat only to find that its a driver's seat over here in Japan.

It was about a 3-3.5 hour drive. We stopped at some random place to grab a bite to eat. I had a beef bowl. One of the ladies we were riding with asked me if I have been using chop sticks for a long time, because I eat pretty well with them. My answer is of course, no; I hardly with chopsticks. It was nice receiving the compliment.

We arrive at the JST apartment complex. There were many representatives from the different branches from around the world. The ones I spoke to were from a couple branches from America (Detroit and Chicago Engineering Center). We go to our room to find that we are staying in a training room full of futons. It was interesting for what I can say. The reps from Detriot thought the futons were softer than they thought it was going to be. I would have to disagree, I thought our beds would be really soft. It was still comfortable to sleep in.

There were many random treats at the kitchen for us to see. There was a shelf with a bunch of anime figurines and a cabinet that was full of manga and how to communicate basically in other countries.

We also found this machine called the "Rodeo Boy". Apparently it is an exercise machine that is supposed to work your abs and quads. It was fun to ride on at least haha. I found a video on youtube that show cases this piece of machinery in action.

Enjoy!

So we went to bed to wake up to an announcement that net fishing was canceled due to the rainy weather. So what was there left for us to do after driving for so far? Tour the area of course!

The first area that we stopped was at a "Japanese Coffin" as it was described to me. It was this building that rested on top of this giant hill. Inside there were many historical artifacts that dealt with the history of the area. There were also pictures of this area bing used for battle since it had the high ground.

There were many old Japanese agricultural tools inside. On the walls there were pictures of people participating in festivals, commerce, and many other things as well.

At the top of the building we had a very beautiful view of the city and the ocean.

The next stop was back to the apartments so that we could eat a BBQ.

The BBQ was very fun. We cooked all the foods on these mini grills and ate as we cooked. We had hotdogs, cabbage, snail oysters, fish, pumpkin, and potatoes. The eating the fish was interesting cause we ate the fish whole: head, bones, scales, and everything. The thing I thought was more of a clam, when pulled out looked more like a snail. It was tasty. I however burnt myself a little bit while prepping the grill and one of the shells exploded due to the pressure build up inside it.

We walked around and went to many gift shops and tried many more foods!

Food

I always take photos of the foods that I eat and most of the pictures of the food I eat don't ever see the light of day. So I decided to create a post of the rest of the foods that I've eaten that never got posted.

Loco Moco Japanese Style from a Reggae Music Bar

Sorry I forgot what this was called, It's like an egg pancake. It has various meats and veggies. I had yakisoba.

The following Photos are Bento Lunch Boxes that I had during work:

My first Ramen in Japan in Namba!

My First time visiting a Curry House in Japan. Below are the instructions how to order conveniently written in English. The Japanese menu had more food options though, so I used that menu instead. There are 10 different levels of spice. 1 being the lowest. 10 being the hottest. We wanted to get 10, but we saw the disclaimer. So we had level 5, after hearing that our friend only had level 2 before.

We both had a Chicken Katsu style curry dish. We can say that level 5 was hot enough. If we got anything higher we probably wouldn't have been able to enjoy the curry at all. There were water pitchers everywhere on the counter and we cleared 2-3 of them on our own.

I think this is the look of defeat. My friend said I looked like I was dying. By the time I got the end of my dish it was getting really spicy. I finished all the meat and 90% of the curry and rice. I had to call it quits though. Maybe another time! Challenge!! :)

Commute to work

For my first week in Japan I will be trained in JST's Osaka Engineering Center, before moving out to the Tokyo Engineering Center. The picture above is me with the other JST interns commuting on the local trains. The train was pretty crowded. You can get a pretty good idea of how crowded the train was by looking at the bottom photo.

So the commute time to the Osaka Engineering Center is about an 1 hour and 15 minutes. We take the local train, transfer to the express train, take the subway to transfer to another station. I wear my backpack everyday to work. My back would hurt so much because the train was crowded. It was really hard to stand most of the times. I remember all the times I heard that in Japan you should think of others. So one day I decided to hold my backpack and not wear it. It was one of the best decisions I've made while commuting. My back stopped hurting, I was able to stand without any problems. I honestly think this is one of the harder thing to adjust to. In Japan people's personal space is so much smaller. I remember being back to back with random people.

This is the scene as we get transfer from Namba to the subway. The best way to describe this scene is like a school of fish travelling from one train to another train. It seems like people are going with the flow most of the time. Sometimes I wasn't sure where to go and I would just follow the wave of people and branch off where I needed to branch off.

First weekend

I am still very much jet lagged. I have been waking up at 3-4am in the morning. What else is there to do but watch television?? I was watching some random children's cartoon for a while then some anime started playing. I think first Pokemon came on, then Dragon Ball Kai, then One Piece. Umm...when I thought Saturday morning cartoons were dead in the states....Sunday morning cartoon = the next best thing??

Nick, Lindsey, and I went traveling around Osaka with some of our co-workers. They were gracious enough to take us sight seeing for the day. Our first stop was at Osaka Castle in Osaka-Jo. We saw this on the way to work on our first day, so it was exciting to see this up close and personal. Inside there were lots of interesting stories about how the castle came to be and the different wars that went on during different periods of times.

The following pictures are from the top view of Osaka Castle. We can see and excellent view of the city.

I have been seeing this character all over Japan. I'm not really sure who they are or why they are at the bottom of Osaka castle for tourists to take photos. Either way it was fun!

Another event that was going on that day was a free lance music performers. People were dressed up doing various kinds of music. It was too bad we didn't stay too long. I think this is the only picture I took of the event.

Welcome to Namba! It is one the bigger shopping areas around Osaka. You can see a picture of me on the right exchanging the Dollar for Yen, 'cause someone (i.e. I) forgot to exchange my money before coming to America and did not convert any of the money over after arriving at the Kansai Airport! I would say it was a major fail on my part, but at least now I have money to get by until the first pay check comes around. :) In Namba we went around the different shopping areas. I would say the closest equivalent that I could think of that could describe this area is like San Francisco where they have different towns like China Town, Japan Town, etc. Except this place has areas that are based on what they sell. So one area called でんでん had a lot of electrical appliances, video games, music, and dvds. Other areas were おたく areas where anime fans would love the area. I didn't know until we came back home that we visited an area where they sell American style apparel!

This is a picture of everyone in the group eating たまごせん (tamagosen). It is a giant rice cracker with cooked egg on top and other toppings. It was very delicious as you can see I couldn't wait to start eating mine! Haha...

Here are couple videos that I took while in the city!

And of course there are tourist photos:

The night was finished with some dinner. There were many interesting foods at this restaurant. One of the more interesting things that we tried at this restaurant was raw horse meat. It was pretty good, so don't let the name deffer you away!

Closing Week 1

This is a picture of my apartment as I stand next to the bathroom/kitchen of my apartment. As you can see, the apartment is relatively small. I don't mind it is bigger than some places I've stayed before.

University of the Pacific IECP students working for JST (Me, Lindsey, Nick)

The first day of work was spent being touring the main facility of JST to learn what the company does and what we will be doing, learning business mannerisms, and the culture of the Japanese people.

This is actually not my first meal eaten in Japan. This is our second dinner. Our first night was spent eating at Denny's. It was a Japanese style Denny's restaurant. Over there I ate a Japanese Hamberger with Daikon on top with a side of salad, fries, rice, and miso soup. It was different, but it tasted very good. Too bad I didn't take a photo of it so you all can see. However, you can at least see what I ate the second night!

We spent a lot of the time exploring the local city of Osaka that surrounded the apartment. That means visiting the local convenient store, the supermarket, the post office, the Daiso, and just plain exploring to see what is around.