Posted on August 25, 2007 Categories: japan, 日本語タグ.
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It was almost 3 years ago I met Aiko in London on our Kontiki tour, and now she is married!
In a Chapel in Yokohama, Aiko wore a white gown, and Masa a white suit. Lunch followed with speeches from Masa’s Boss, family etc, and then… me..
Yep I made a speech at a Japanese wedding! In Japanese! Starting from scratch 3 days before the wedding, I wrote the speech in English and Koichi saved me with a last minute translation into Japanese. Still fine tuning it Friday night and printing Saturday morning – I wasn’t the most prepared. Normally I’m fine with speeches, but all of mine before were 21st parties, and of course, in English! I was reading from paper (romaji) and shaking like hell at first, but once I got going it was OK. People laughed at most of the jokes – Making Aussie humor work in Japanese is not easy – At the end, Aiko’s dad thanked me and said he understood about 50% of it.. not bad.. And Her mum came up and started crying, but no it wasn’t because of me, and she liked the speech too.
Unfortunately Bao Qin forgot to bloody record the thing!! (still giving her shit about it) so might be a while before I can get the video of it.
After the speeches, Aiko and Masa left the room, and returned later in traditional Japanese clothes (Kimonos). These are hideously expensive, even when only renting for the day. Aiko’s dancing group friends then did a big performance to music for about 5min, wearing school uniforms and masks. Crazy.
When lunch finished we joined the 2Ji Kai, a 2nd party just for close friends, no family etc. This was much more casual, and involved games to get people to mix together. This included pairs popping a balloon between them, without hands, drinking a glass of tea through a very thin and long windy straw, questions etc. Very entertaining.
So the other night about 9pm I hear someone knocking on one of the doors on our floor. He kept at it for about 10min, “moshi moshi” “ko(n)ban wa”. Normally the post office guys give up after 2 knocks. They left before I could see who it was.
Next morning at 9am I wake up to a similar sound. Finally someone answered. 5min later they knocked on MY door! I open, eyes half shut, to see Otaku (no-one knows his real name, they just call him Otaku, like super-nerd) with 2 Policeman behind him! NO I wasn’t thinking, “shit. Is my visa up?”. He said some stuff in Japanese, most I couldn’t understand, then when I answered they said no worries and went to talk to somebody else.
I had to wait all day to find out what was going on! We conjured stories of one of the new guy being wanted for something, but it wasn’t nearly as exciting. Turns out Otaku had been involved in some kind of fight!! And needed a co-signature for his statement. Dont know why he knocked on my door?!
We pretty much went to Osaka to go to Universal Studios. We met one of Bao Qin’s friends and his niece and nephew who were veterans of the park.
It was actually a lot smaller than I thought it would be! And waaay too many people. When we first got there about 10am, the line for the spiderman ride was 4hours long.. 4hours!! And people were still lining up. We went to JAWS which was still 90min, and after all that it was quite lame!! The boat even stopped for 10min during because of an error – but at least they gave us an express pass which we used to skip right to the front of spiderman!
Spiderman is easily the best attraction: wearing 3D glasses and entering a car you move around and get the wholde 4D experience. But most of the attractions were this style, and the only real “ride” as such was the single Jet Coaster – looked much scarier than it was. B2TFuture also did a good job at making you really feel like the car was moving around like the IMAX style screen showed.
The amount of people though meant most of our day was spent lining up, and when you finally get to the entrace, its another waiting room! Thats the price for going during public hollidays, but we had a nice day of course, though its definately aimed towards younger kids, and giving the western experience. Australia’s Wonderland is the only other big theme park I’ve been to and it beats USJ in rides easily. Next to try is Disneyland!
Oh, the purple band in the last photo is from the roller coaster to keep thongs on – very stylish.
I can’t remember its real name so Monkey Mountain it is! Japanese Mcaque are free to live and roam on this mountain, and about 5min up the hill you start to see them! There are signs everywhere not to show them food etc or they will go after it, but they seemed happy just playing about. At the top there is a hut where you can feed them from, and they happily cling to the wire and put their hand in asking for food (yes the humans are the ones inside the cage!). Your not supposed to give it hand to hand but ohwell They also have this little pond to swim in and cool off, a view over kyoto, and a slipery slide to play on! They are very cute and playful, but near the end one was eyeing Bao Qin’s bag and stood up on 2 legs, waving his arms in the air walking towards her – scaring her backwards while I could only laugh hahaha.
After walking back down the mountain, we cooled off by walking across the river, which seems to a local pass time.
Next Day off to Ryoanji, most famous for a particular rock garden with a special design. Made only of pebbles and 15 large rocks, the garden is special because of its layout. In walking around the garden, you can only ever see 14 of the 15 rocks at one time. There is always at least one hidden from view by another rock. However public are restricted to one side so I couldnt test it from 360degrees!
It is inside a large park and a Yu-dofu Restaurant, a special Tofu Restaurnt inside its own Japanese garden with flowing water.
After that we walked around the Gion district, but couldnt find any Geisha damnit! We sat near the river for a while which is lined with restaurants, and spent quite a while trying to take a photo by ourselves!
Later on for dinner we went to a Thai restaurant claiming “Vegetarian Options!” on their sign, but had not one single item on the menu… At least they made it special LOL
I hadn’t seen much of Japan outside Tokyo so me and Bao Qin booked in a trip to Kyoto and Osaka, the supposed “traditional” areas of Japan, and a chance for me to try out the famous Shinkansen, Nozomi! (Bullet Train)
Shinkansen: Loads of space and comfy seats, only 1 stop during our 2.5hr trip to Kyoto, reaching speeds of over 270km/hr! while staying very smooth and quiet. Not hard to see why they are so popular!
Where else to start a trip of “Tradtional Japan” but the Atom shop! Known as Astro Boy to us, the little robot boy with jets on his feet and guns in his ass, has his own shop right inside Kyoto Station.
After a bit of hassle trying to find the hostel, we chucked the bags and headed to Kyoumizu Tera. A large temple on the side of a hill, surrounded by Trees, and a lookout over Kyoto. The temps were pushing 40degrees and it was packed, but a drink of natural spring water helped! and Ofcourse some Kakigori, or Snow Cones – very popular in summer here!
Some of the stuff from September that is: Japanese TV
Sero: This guy amazes me. He has won magician of the year before and rightly so. Japanese background, he often visits and is most popular here. Google for Cyril Magaic and you will see. This is his ‘matrix’ trick.
