First Impressions - Part 2: The First Night

If you're just joining me here, check out the entry below before you read this because this is just its second half (it was getting too long).

Welcome back. I just took a break to get a reliable Fanta from the drink room and am pleased to note that the girl who was sleeping on her keyboard has woken up, had a couple of smokes and is now applying some make-up at her seat. The guy to my right is still enthralled in his comic book. People seem to be just hangingout here rather than actually using the internet.

So where did I leave off? Oh, the subway. You might notice that I'm not being very descriptive about my surroundings in Osaka. Honestly, I was so tired that I can't even really remember. I remember everyone being Asian (even moreso than Vancouver!!!) and that I couldn't read any of the signs whatsoever. In Hong Kong this wasn't the case, I guess since it used to be a British colony they felt the need to have every sign in English and I'm only now realizing what a luxury that was. Since Japan wasn't colonized I think it lacks the European influence that exists in many other Asian cities -- Hong Kong was once British, Shanghai was once French, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur were Dutch, Singapore both British and Dutch, Macau Portuguese, Manila Spanish... Osaka is just so purely Japanese.

I tried to make Yvette show me exactly what we were doing each stage of the way so that I could easily get around independently without her... Buying the ticket, reading the subway map... I'm really, really happy that I learned how to read Hirongana* before coming to Japan because the map had NO ENGLISH!!

*Hirogana is one of four forms of Japanese writing. The easiest (and least common) is romanji, basically writing Japanese out in English-style characters (such as writing Tokyo instead of the silly characters). The second alphabet is Hirogana and consists of about 80 characters, each representing a different syllable (ie ka, tsu, mo, chi). Every word in Japanese could be spelled out in Hirogana, but that would be too easy.

The third and fourth alphabets (which I don't yet understand) are Katakana and Kanji. Katakana, which has exactly the same amount of characters as Hirogana and represents the exact same sounds, uses different symbols and represents mostly words that come from foreign languages (like pasuporutu to say "passport" -- though they're not usually that easy, take a word like berubetu which is translated from "velvet"). The last, and only really impossible alphabet, is kanji, representing approximately 60-70% of written Japanese, I'm told. It's just random characters that mean different things and is derived from Chinese script.

I'm getting sidetracked again. So our subway turned into an overground trains, crossed a bridge over the Yodagawa River and then a subway station called (seriously) Nishinakashima-Minamigata and got off at Shinosaka station. Shinosaka is a reasonably major station that I'm somewhat proud to be in the vicinity of. She didn't really know where we were going, but she had the map that was given to me that she was trying to follow. We walked past a couple of streets and stopped as she tried to figure out what "grey building" they were referring to on my directions.

We wandered up and down the streets of my neighbourhood for a good 25 minutes or so before we got back on track. My bag was heavy and I wanted to go to sleep, but Yvette had told me earlier that she wasn't going to help me with my bag (she had tried to convince me to have it delivered the next day) so I had to pretend I was having no trouble with it out of principle.

My neighbourhood was strange and I think pretty typical of Japan. The streets were really narrow and quiet, almost like alleyways sometimes and there were usually no sidewalks so people walked and rode their bike on the street and moved to the side if a car came by. I started to become unhappy with how dark quiet my neighbourhood seemed, but then was happy to see that my building was the largest, most monstrous building on the block. It's wide, orange-bricked and probably about 16 storeys high. All of the apartments have balconies facing the street.

We used my key to enter and made our way up to the sixth floor. We walked along the outside of the building (the "hall" is open-air and on the back of the bldg). I was disappointed to see that we were right next to the train tracks (like eight rows of them) and started envisioning being woken up at all hours of the night by passing trains. We rang the doorbell to see if my roommates were there, but there was no answer, so we went in and took our shoes off in the traditional porch-platform that's a few inches lower than the rest of the apartment's floor.

I had bad first impressions of my roommates. The apartment was pretty dirty and kind of smelled. They knew I was coming and was confused that they'd leave garbage out on the counter and scattered across one side of the kitchen. There was a note left on the table from the previous tenant that had been sitting there since the previous week. Maybe I've just been spoiled by living at my parents' house for almost the past entire year and have forgotten what the reality of living with other young people is. Anyway, I think the worst part of it was probably the smell. Yvette had said that my roommates will have left a note for me to welcome me, but there was nothing there.

The apartment was fairly small in size, but having lived in Asia already that's what I was expecting. It was "fully furnished" by NOVA and it looked like a lot of the goods that were there had been passed around for decades. In the small living room area there was a small tv with a V.C.R. If you don't remember, VCRs were a technology used back in the 1900s to watch movies such as "Total Recall" and "Peter's Dragon". I hadn't used one in a while and was confused that one would still exist in what I believed to be the world's most advanced society. They had a couple of Japanese versions of movies that existed around the end of the VHS era such as "Hot Shots" and something starring Val Kilmer. They also had "Go" which I was happy to see since I' like to watch it.

We went into my room (about as small as you can imagine) and surprisingly, there was no bed. Instead, there was an old fold-up mattress and a what looked like a big package that had just been delivered. Yvette told me that my futon was inside that package and asked if I'd be fine to put it together on my own. I said yes and she left.

I was hungry, but had absolutely no idea how I'd go about getting some food. It was probably around 8pm and I decided that I had better put together my bed before I completely pass out. I opened the package to find another fold-up mattress-type thing, a pillow, two sheets and two slippery blankets, one of which was not very pliable like a blow-up mattress used for camping. I threw them altogether until it looked like a makeshift pile that a homeless person might sleep on and then wandered around the apartment for a few minutes.

I started getting a really bad feeling about my roommates. What if they're terrible? I found a pile of CDs on the table, like 60 of them, and I didn't recognize any of the artists except for one - Buck 65 (an independent hip hop artist from Nova Scotia). There was a small toaster-oven that looked like it hadn't been cleaned since its purchase in 1974 and a stove-top on the counter. The fridge was old-style and filled with things that looked like they'd been there for way too long. I hadn't even met them yet but I... I hated my roommates.

Before I came to Osaka I received a letter in the mail giving my Osaka address and saying that my roommates' names were Mr. Christopher Hum (Canadian) and Mr. William Vickery Jr. (American). For some reason I was expecting the former to be a very non-conformed Chinese Canadian from BC and the latter to be a Southern Dandy who would hit people who offended him with his cane and slap people with his glove to demand a duel. It was looking like this wasn't the case...

So I decided to go get something to find something to eat. Luckily, while killing time in the Vancouver airport, I had changed about $40 CDN into 3,500 yen, so I had a little bit of money. As I was about to get on the elevator, a Chinese-looking guy in a brown leather jacket got off. He passed me but then turned around, "Hey, are you..."
"Hi, I'm Ryan, you must be Chris." we shook hands and I went back to the apartment with him. He seemed like a nice guy and I was relieved. He's from Ottawa and has been here since February and is here purely for the money-making aspect of it, I got the impression he'd much rather be back in Canada and was trying to overwork himself by taking as many extra shifts as possible. I barraged him with questions about life here but was surprised that he still seemed kind of unfamiliar with the place and I think could speak less Japanese than me. I asked him where I should go to get some quick take-out and he didn't really know, but pointed me in the general direction of where there's an area about 15-20 minutes away with a lot of small restaurants and he thinks there's one with vending machines there.

So I headed out to find something. I found a small grocery store which was nice, though most of the prepared food looked pretty scary. Stuff like deep-fried pieces of meat (I don't know what since I can't read) that was just sitting out with no packaging on chilled shelves. There was a little bit of packaged sushi, but nothing that looked terribly appealing at the time. I just wanted something nice and familiar that I thought would surely not make me have to go to the hospital in the middle of the night. So I crossed a big overpass and there were tons of people on the streets. People handing out packages of kleenex with advertisements on them (this is really common on the streets of Asia), a lot of businessmen in big groups probably going for after-work drinks. I saw a restaurant called Mos Hamburger that had some pictures of hamburgers and I took note since I started to doubt that I would find anything else understandable.

I was right. I wandered the area for a few more blocks and could usually tell that something was a restaurant, but had no idea what they were serving and everything was written in Japanese. Keep in mind that I was still really tired and was kind of stumbling around and staring at signs trying to comprehend things. I was really hoping that I'd turn a corner and see the big beautiful glow of the golden arches. I would rush in, point to a random combo and throw my money on the counter and have them sort it out. But it didn't happen. I don't know why guidebooks don't give you the translation for "Where is the nearest McDonald's?" because they should know that that's what any scared, tired, hungry, lost traveler needs to get back into their comfort zone.

Anyway, I returned to "Mos Hamburger" and as I said, nothing was in English except that title and its subtitle "Japanese fine hamburger and coffees".

The Japanese are obsessed with formailities. When you walk into any restaurant or store - often even if you just walk near them - the workers all yell things out to make you feel welcome. It usually starts with "SUMIMASEN!!" (meaning a number of polite things) or "OHAIO GOSAIMASU!!" (Good morning) and then often keeps going into a series of sentences that I don't understand. I don't know if they're asking me questions or if I'm supposed to respond, so I usually just try to smile and not make eye contact.

I walked to the front counter, the woman welcomed me and demonstrated for me to point at a picture of what I wanted. I looked at the various pictures of burgers to try to find the safest bet. Any of what I thought to be hamburgers also seemed to have some unrecognizable red mass on it that looked like raw ground beef. I looked through and settled on what I thought to be a chicken burger and what I thought would be a chocolate milkshake and was really happy to think that I found something safe and my stomach wouldn't try to punish me that night. I sat down and studied my phrase book until it was ready and they brought me a bag with both items and I strolled home.

I ate at the table while continuing to squeeze Chris for information. I extremely overwhelmed that he hadn't turned out to be horrible, but was still terrified of the other roommate who still wasn't back from work. Chris told me that he was leaving to go on vacation to the Philippines (Cebu island) the following morning and wouldn't be back until next week. I asked him about the other roommate (now referred to as Will), and he vaguely said "Yeah, he's a nice guy. He's from California."

Soon after I finished eating it was a few minutes before 10pm and I announced I was going to bed and headed for my room. He said he was too because he had to get up early for his flight. The windows don't seem to have any weather-proofing so it was kind of cold, but there was an electric heater in my room so I pulled that out and set it up. Like everything here it's buttons were only in Japanese so I just pressed some radom buttons and it turned on. I turned off my lights and my room glowed red. I was so tired. I think I fell asleep right away which almost never happens to me. Come to think of it, I would say that this is the first time in many years that I was asleep around 10pm.

I was awoken at 11:30pm and felt horrible. I was still really tired but felt sick and could tell that the bad-tasting chicken burger and the coffee-flavoured milkshake that I ended up purchasing had not settled well in my stomach. I was in a wretched state of mind that I find hard to describe and I think has only happened to me four times in my lifetime. The first was when I was 7 and my family went to Europe. We flew into London, arriving mid-day, and I fell asleep in the hotel room at 5pm. When I was woken up at 9pm to go get supper, I remember being in a fit of screaming and crying and not knowing what to do with myself... not wanting to be asleep but not wanting to be awake, kind of like wanting to escape from my skin. It happened again more mildly when I was 17 and went to Cuba and again slept for a couple of hours and was awoken at suppertime. Again when I went to Hong Kong and slept from 6pm-8:30pm and when I was starting to wake up I was on the telephone with my father just mumbling nonsensically and sweating profusely. Anyway, this was basically where I was at this time. I had slept an hour and a half and really didn't want to be there. But why did I wake up if I was so tired, you ask?

Someone had just slammed the door to our apartment and was now yelling. In a menacing voice I heard "Yo yo!! You best get the FUCK out of the country!! Get the FUCK out of here!!". I was confused and angry. Is this my roommate? Why would they subject me to this?? I really didn't want to deal with this and just stayed in bed. He then said soemthing about going to the Philippines and I realized it was Will joking around with Chris. Wow, I really hated him. I felt sick and needed to make a trip to the washroom, but didn't want to have to meet my new roommate in my wretched state and risk doing something inappropriate like punching him. I waited things out and once things seemed to have calmed to silence 15 minutes later I emerged from my room...

Nobody was there, I guess they had both gone to bed. Our washroom is strange. The toilet is in a room by itself across the hall from the sink, which shares a room with the Japanese washing mahcine and the shower room. The shower room consists of a deep bathtub and a floor with a drain. The shower head is kind of off to the side, so I guess we're just supposed to shower wherever and let the water drain into the floor. I went back to bed and slept soundlessly until 5:30am when Chris had gotten up for his flight.

Again, this is getting long so I'm going to cut it short and continue with the next day on another post.