Wandering around Nagoya

I got into one of my more solitary moods and ditched fellow students on Friday afternoon and went on extended walk around Nagoya on my own. Ate boxed lunch on train, and then headed out to the excessively warm (27 degrees according to forecast) midday sun.

I was looking for the local oddity-shop called Geestore, but the plan unfortunately did not quite work out as I had planned. First of all, I forgot to take the map along when I left Okazaki. This I circumvented by finding random unprotected wlan and getting the map from their website (I've claimed that you do not need to walk more than 100 meters to find network connectivity in any big japanese city - assertion which I proved wrong later this day).

After walking about kilometer or so in the blistering sun, I found the store. Or what I thought was the store. The logo was there. But very little else was, besides kanji-infested sign which basically said "we have moved - our new address is 名古屋市中区大須３－１１－３４" (except all in japanese obviously).

I did not appreciate this very much, but as Osu was close by (less than 3km), I decided to walk there. The Osu area is few square kilometers across, so I needed to decrypt the 3-11-34 part. Mapion is excellent just for that. However, to use it I needed network connectivity again.

The place where I found the last wlan access was half a kilometer away (the wrong way) so I figured I might as well head for Osu and find another wlan point. Unfortunately, this was not as simple as I hoped and in the end my arm got very tired from holding the laptop, and my previous record (100 meters to find wlan access) was beat handily. I think I walked almost kilometer before I found unsecure wlan and checked the address on the map in Mapion.

After almost hour of wandering around (Osu has interesting museums, I checked from outside what special exhibitions they had - unfortunately nothing noteworthy) and checking out Osu Kannon (the most famous buddhist temple in the district), I headed to shopping area.

And damn, the shopping zone in Osu is a lot more impressive than Sakae or other parts of Nagoya I have been to so far. I found the Geestore, which was disappointing as far as what I was looking for (gatchapon, cheap "random result" toys you get), but had tons of other interesting stuff. As usual, I window shopped hour or two, went to few other stores, and finally walked to nearby Book-Off where I found few more books of 吸血鬼美夕　- bought 2 more for 210 yen (1.7? euros for 2 secondhand a5+ size books, not bad). Finally wandered home after doing some photography of random things nearby (results posted later on if I get inspired).

Summary of Book-Off visits so far:

• Okazaki middle (north of Aeon building): maybe 10 times
• Okazaki south: maybe 6 times
• Okazaki north (far away, 7km or so, by train)
• Atsuda (BIG - southern Nagoya)
• Kurogawa (BIG - northern Nagoya)
• Osu (central Nagoya): 2 times
  

As the books are secondhand, the selection varies by time too, so I've been checking the closest one every few days for changes in inventory :) Funnily enough, my visits to Nagoya seem to involve sightseeing, shopping (mostly the bookstores of various kinds) and very little else..

And finally rant about Japanese toys.. who in their right mind would pay 5+ euros for random figurine out of 7 possible, when you want only one? Apparently many Japanese, or they want them all, as almost all fan stuff seems to be of 'random one out of N alternatives'. Gatchapon (kinder-egg-like-but-larger-and-no-chocolate) are reasonably priced (100-300 yen), but there are also figurines that are in 700+ yen range with similar selling scheme. And I really wanted the 'rare' Chii-with-bad-hair-day too *sigh*. Oh well, American anime-fanboy left me a bunch of his loot that he didn't want to carry home, beyond that haven't shopped much beyond books myself. Maybe I will indulge myself when I go to Tokyo in two weeks or so. My sole toy so far is gatchapon - luckily out of 6 Evangelion figurines I got the one I wanted.

And now playing..

Nth rerun of Fruits Basket is on TV every day 2030+, I've been watching that when I have the time.. but mostly on the computer, antisocially enough.

Anime series 'Air' seems to be very big here nowadays judging by the insane amount of fanstuff, and I can understand why. It's typical N-way relationship soap opera drama, except it's very well done. Too bad the series is already finished, time to hope for next season. I've so far watched 6 out of 13 episodes and quitting watching seems difficult. Motto of the day: 飛べない翼に意味があるんでしょうか - 'Is there a reason for wings that cannot fly?'。 (and no, nobody really has wings that I've seen so far).

I've gotten into nasty habit of watching anime without subtitles (I understand most of it it seems), as well as reading manga without furigana (likewise, although the occassional dictionary lookup hurts). We shall see where THIS dark path leads ;) Too bad the inhuman working hours, lack of real bread (see previous rant), and excessive amount of people make sure that I'm unlikely to ever stay long here in future either.

Speaking of bread, the Yakitate! Japan was on the other day, there's apparently already 27 episodes of anime that is solely about baking bread. I bought one book of the manga for laughs, haven't yet looked at it (found also 2 books of manga that was about making ramen.. hrr).

Shopping - fun for the whole family

Wasted most of weekend, just went to Nagoya for shopping expedition (Fri) to Book-Off near 黒川駅。It was fairly big one, but didn't find anything of use as I was leading 2 other students on the expedition and couldn't quite idle there all day (others were not as interested in books as I was). Additionally, visited the most famous temple in Nagoya called Atsuda-jingu (originally 3rd century).

Saturday I lurked in Okazaki (Book-Off x2 ;>), as well as Sunday. Dreamed of digital SLR camera, but I think I'm still too cheapskate to buy one. Monday I finally skipped class for most of monday (went only to my private lesson in the afternoon, as well as free-form chat with future teachers).

In terms of food, I'm missing real bread terribly - here, everything is practically dessert/pastry-type, unfortunately *sigh*. On the positive side, I had the most positive customer service experience in ages - nut in my new sunglasses had fallen off, and I got replacement (installed) without any cost.

On completely unrelated front, I've been playing Go with fellow German student - so far 3 wins 1 loss ;). See pictures below for street decoration of Okazaki / what have I been shopping so far (I got the question of "what exactly HAVE you bought" last week).

Loot so far (+computer+rewritable DVD+mouse+sunglasses).

Funny decoration in Okazaki. 

Okazaki by night 2 

Okazaki by night 1 

Dark clouds atop Nagoya City Hall (nice roof). 

Nagoya has some strange buildings. 

And to those who wish to contact me..

you should know the email address. Last week (thursday I think) I typoed one command on my Linux box in Finland, and that effectively screwed it up, and the local attempts to revive it were not successful -> I will not be on IRC until I return to Finland, and only sometimes on MSN.

Lot of people have expressed interest in the weather. Here is weather forecast for Nagoya. Typically weather has been in 20-25 celsius range recently, and that's already bit hot for me (as I use long-sleeved coat most of time to avoid the use of suntan lotion). Tomorrow looks rainy according to forecast though, we shall see.

Meiji-Mura. 

Weekly summary

Up to last week, the group of students at Yamasa in my class has been limited (mostly only one classmate, during first week 3 classmates). That changed last friday, and not really for the better. Now I have 5 classmates, and some of them are struggling to keep up => teaching is slow => I am very bored in class. I have gotten into a habit of dragging my laptop to class to study with it when it seems I have spare time (so far, quite lot of it, really, unfortunately).

Friday afternoon: Osaka castle with fellow student (castle itself was boring, but the park was nice; maybe not worth the 1000 yen entrance fee). After that, we went to Sakae (shopping district), browsed through two stores, found wireless LAN access, and located nearest Book-Off. Went there, and got home after 22, quite tired.

Saturday: Went sightseeing with the same guy. Inuyama castle (oldest surviving in Japan) was quite impressive, as well as Meiji-Mura (lots of 100-year-give-or-take-some old buildings in a nice garden with museums and stuff). In afternoon went to a famous teahouse for a quick walk - their garden was also quite nice. When sun went down, returned to Nagoya. In Nagoya, assorted shopping (laptop memory, new ipod headphones (lousy ones, as it turns out), some anime/manga fan stuff). After dinner, we used same method as the previous day to locate larger Book-Off store, and went there. Bought some 40-ish manga books or so for 3000 yen (24 eur?) - now I need to figure how to ship them home. Got back to apartment around midnight, very tired (having walked from the morning, and dragged tons of stuff half of the day too).

Sunday I mostly rested and studied a bit. Had a nasty fight with the laptop's extra memory, turns out it was overheating due to sticker on it. Oh well, now it works (and I have 768MB RAM).

Monday I did my studying record; 0900-1430 in class (40 minute food break in middle), 1440-1530 private lesson, 1630-1800 talking session with teachers-in-training, 1830-2230 homework+kanji study at home.

Therefore I did not feel very motivated to study so hard today so I'm semi-idling through the late evening, sorting photos and so forth (although I have studied few hours today too).

Bamboo forest near a famous teahouse. 

Inuyama castle. 

Nagoya evening view. 

Some parts of Nagoya are .. strange. 

New day, new toy

Bought a small, wireless (radio-based) optical mouse. Very cool toy, about half the size of my wireless mouse back home, AND the USB plug fits inside the mouse so it's tiny when being carried along too! (Weighs only 2x as much as the batteries do ;>). In addition to that, just study, more study, study.. sigh. On the weekend, I plan on some interesting sightseeing nearby, and also obviously bit more studying (repetitive, isn't this?).

Weekly update

As can be seen, I've been traveling a bit. On friday, we had Yamasa's SILAC classes common hanami (cherry-tree-watching) party - started 6 pm, and finished 9 pm. Shared some food/drink under the sakura, not bad experience.

On saturday I went for extended walk (2pm-9pm) and accidentally bought a new computer (Panasonic R3) as it was on 15% discount. Had lots of fun, first walked among the sakura by day, then went to Okazaki castle, enjoyed the sakura festivities (did some western-style archery, ate lots of strange food such as milk ice cream.. really!), and finally walked home in the dark. The lit sakura were unforgettable, I have ton of pictures (but only 3 here).

Sunday, I went to Kyoto. The imperial palace had it's one of rare open-for-public moments, so it was must-see. After that,　I wandered around and during wandering lost my expensive sunglasses, gnnh. Kiyomizu-temple, some maiko wandering around (probably not real ones?), some book store shopping and so on, and I was well cooked (very hot day - 25 degrees or so) and ready to head home.

Missed first train, got home very late, and borrowed classmate's bicycle to get to the store in time to get my new computer (I had reserved it on saturday but it was being fitted until sunday morning). Lots of funny rapid bicycling in dark later, I had long discussion with shop clerks about why they would not sell it tax-free (Sigh), bought the computer+DVD-drive and headed home.

Since that have been mostly fighting urge not to play with the new computer too much, but have failed for most part - little sleep, studies suffering. Oh well. Picture total so far? About 400 pictures on this trip, over 200 of them within last week.

Except for the lost sunglasses (grr, 120 euros wasted or so) best week so far. Studies had also some interesting bits, but I'll leave them to my diary :)

Wonder where it is going..

Sakura in Kyoto (drooping kind seems rare, this one is probably old).

Some maiko (or more likely, girls dressed as maiko) in Kyoto

I was not alone going to the imperial palace..

Imperial garden in Kyoto's imperial palace.

More sakura by night.

Sakura and swans.

Sakura by night.

Nature, or as close as it gets here.

Saint Catherine campus (yes, really). Girl-only highschool + kindergarten, reminds me of maria-sama-ga-miteru.

Hanami party (yes, in dark, don't ask me why)

Hanami party preparations (Yamasas smaller hall in background)

Weekly summary

Friday: Anjo Corona, Howl's moving castle (Miyazaki's latest anime) - wasn't THAT impressed.
Saturday: Study, study, study.
Sunday: Using cheap rapid trains (shin kaisoku), went to Osaka and back for Comic City 53 + assorted sightseeing + shopping. Didn't buy a thing, but had lots of fun and was VERY tired when I got back - one way, the trip is about 3 hours 15 minutes or so, I left home 6:40 in the morning and returned 21:30 in the evening.

Weekdays I mostly study, unfortunately(?). Interestingly enough, even as the japanese claim to have garbage problem, they use INSANE amount of packing material needlessly in my opinion. No matter what you buy in a shop, you get a plastic bag. Many things are seperately packed, like today I bought icecream+chocolate balls, and EACH of them was in their own small (1cm across or so) plastic bag. Insane :-)

Also did some hotel reservations, which was funny practise of japanese - we had done something similar in the class earlier (calling random tourist attraction and asking about various things politely, listening to results and relaying them to teacher; that was apart from the Toyota factory tour my favourite exercise so far ^_^). Too bad one can't take pictures in interesting places (Comic City, Toyota car factory)..

In Japan, Santa Claus does love hotels! And for the uninformed, love hotels in Japan provide brief 'rest' for money, or longer 'sleep' for night's worth of privacy.. and no, prostitution isn't typically involved. 

Waiting with tens of thousands of kids inside the convention center waiting to get to see some art (2x Pasila's convention center size, more or less).