Japan trip, 28 Jan – 14 Feb, 2011 (Four photo links below)

It was colder here than we expected when we arrived - sunny but around zero to 4 Celsius. It went up to 11 – 12 degrees after a few days. Only the bedroom here at the Bahá'í Centre in Amagasaki has a heater, and in the rest of the rooms you could see your breath. (The large main room has a large mounted heater/AC unit but we couldn’t figure out how to turn it on and didn’t want to heat such a large space in any case.) So it was a little like camping at first, trying to figure out how to take a shower without freezing to death and all that. We eventually learned that you need to fill the tub with hot water and let the room steam up. (Kind of like the Japanese traditional onsens, which were originally built around hot water springs, with washing stations and communal baths of various sizes and temperatures to soak in, all quite steamy. Now they build similar establishments right in town, called sentos.) Kazusa’s parents also lent us a heater for the kitchen, and then things were just fine. 

Miki Wakaru, a Bahá’í who lives down the street, came over with flowers and slippers for both of us, which was really sweet! We chatted and had tea. We were also able to meet Tymon Hsieh, from Victoria, who teaches English in Osaka, and a whole roomful of Bahá’ís on the 2nd Sunday, when Feast was held at the Centre. We’re really just housesitting here while the caretaker is away. Amagasaki was the site of the first Bahá’í Centre in Japan, dedicated 10 Jan ’54 – there’s a photo of it in the entrance hall. One of the ladies (Mahin) and two of the little boys in the photo were at Sunday’s Feast – 57 years later! A lady named Mary translated what we said into Japanese for the others. We told Mahin it was an honour to meet her.

We spend the daytime in Kobe with Jamie and Kazusa and just come back here to the Centre to sleep and have breakfast. After he’d experimented unsuccessfully with sitting on the floor, we went to Ikea to buy Jim a chair, a commodity that's not to be taken for granted! Jamie didn't own one. Now he does.

Kazusa’s grandparents bought a chair especially for Jim when they invited us for supper. The rest of us sat on the heated carpet – it has an underpad the same size as the rug that’s heated electrically. They had spent a great deal of time making a delicious fish-based stew called oden and also gave us beautifully wrapped gifts of Dutch bread and cake. This was after Kazusa’s parents had brought us to Kyoto, to the Golden Temple and a wonderful restaurant where we’d had lunch – so we were feeling very spoiled!

Another great surprise was the magical heated table. The tables are low, like coffee tables, and often have a built-in heater underneath. The top removes to allow a quilt to go underneath over a second top with large holes, and to the floor, so you can keep the heat in. (Best to take a look at the photos to see what I mean.) (Photos here of the Golden Temple, family, heated table, ducks...) The ubiquitous “western style” toilets are far more than heated, surpass everything French and can include music. (If you’ve ever read The Elegance of the Hedgehog... Never mind, you’d probably still be surprised.)

Aside from the octopus balls, the food has been great! (They were very gooey.) Eating out is surprisingly cheap unless you go to the upscale places, but normal food is very healthy, diverse, tasty and you can get a hot lunch that looks more like dinner for about $5 - $8, including tea.

The more expensive restaurants like Kin Sushi on Awaji Island serve endless courses, each one more beautiful (kilei!) and delicious (oishi!) than the last. Kazusa’s parents brought us there on the 2nd Saturday, and showed us all over the island – great day. Itadakimas is said before every meal, a word implying gratitude. Arigato gozaimas (thank you) is said everywhere by everyone for everything, and nobody seemed to shorten it, so it sunk in pretty quickly. “You’re welcome” was longer again; it was easier to just to smile and nod! Yes is an easy one: hai! No is another matter, because when you mispronounce it, it sounds like you’re cheering. “Iie” sounds like Yes without the “s” and has to be said with a downward tone at the end. With an upward tone, it’s “Yay!”
(More photos here... the Centre, Jamie’s office, food, family, etc)

Another useful word is Suimasen (excuse me), said to clerks, servers, and people you bump into. Daijobu is “I’m okay”, but we were told not emphasize the boo part. Forget figuring out the script – it’s a mixture of kanji from China, katakana from foreign words and the curvy hiragana original Japanese script. The latter two are phonetic, but every school kid has to learn over 2000 non-phonetic kanji as well as the roman alphabet. Kanji can have different meanings in Japan and China, e.g. the symbol for “wife” in Chinese is “mistress” in Japanese, which I guess could be handy to know in some situations.

The trains are all signed in English, each station having the name plus the names of the last and next stations clearly visible on the walls and on train monitors.  There are several lines, plus subways and bullet trains. The inter-city lines have local plus four types of express trains that skip the smaller stops. Even the slow local train that stopped 8 times between our stop (Mukonoso) and Sannomiya in Kobe only took half an hour, compared to 50 minutes by car.  Express can be 15 minutes. We haven’t had any problem getting seats in this area of 17 million people (Kyoto/Osaka/Kobe). Trains arrive about every 5 minutes, so no waiting.

Another pleasant surprise was the lack of theft. People regularly leave bikes unlocked, and other items unprotected. We met a PhD student from Russia on the train who had left her computer in the basket of her bike, to come back several hours later and find it still there. Some attribute that phenomenon to the lack of drugs here.  Another difference is the quiet. People on trains either watch TV on their cell phones (a whole other story) or sleep; chatting is sometimes heard but never noisy.   

There’s also absolutely no problem with the air quality here, I suppose because of Japan’s use of nuclear energy. Everything is very neat, clean, controlled and orderly. People are extraordinarily courteous. We were given many gifts by Jamie’s students.                                                                                                                            

Buildings are crowded together, built to the street and if they’re in the city, full of billboards. On the other hand, when you stumble onto Poetry Monuments and temple grounds in the middle of Kobe (right behind the ShinKobe station), or gardens like the Sorakuen, it seems even more magical in contrast. (Photos of Monument walk, Ashiya, Kobe etc)
(Photos of gardens, toilet, b’day photos, Bahá’í cemetery in Ashiya)