Week 7

Just when I though things were calming down a bit, I had another busy week this week. Overtime, museums, snow, concerts, weekend trips. I think I need a break after all the time off I had this week.

Things kicked off this week when I accepted an overtime shift last Tuesday (on overtime days we typically go teach someone else's class if, say, they're on vacation.) To make a long, shop-talk filled story short; materials were not prepared and I had to improvise right off the bat. Luckily I'm pretty easy-going and everything turned out okay in the end.

Wednesday I went with a friend (the same one who joined me at the earthquake museum the week before) to see the Modern Transportation Museum here in Osaka. The M.T.M. isn't much to write home about but for 400 yen it's worth a look. Being partially sponsored by JR (Japan Rail) there'a a heavy bias towards trains over other froms of transportation and I suppose it's great if trains are your thing.

Thursday I had to (ungh) work. On the bright side I went out afterwords (my shift ended at 11:05) and chilled with friends in my favorite watering hole until 3am.

Friday (the National Foundation Day holiday) was greeted groggily until I looked outside and saw a beautiful blanket of snow covering the city. I threw on some warm clothes, grabbed my camera, and ran out the door. I ended up walking around my neighborhood and up to Namba Parks (a big mall with a park on top.) I was the last person to climb the slippery snow-covered stairs before security cordoned everything off as a safety precaution. I spent the afternoon relaxing and anticipating the concert that evening. The Band this time was "The King Brothers" and it was in the same location as the last concert I went to (though the venue had been re-painted/branded in the short time since January.) The band was pretty awesome, played a long set, and even played two encores.

The original plan for Saturday/Sunday called for driving to Awaji Island and spending the night in a Japanese style inn. Unfortunately, with Friday's snow it was unclear how easy it would be to get around on the island. In a fantastic bit of last-minute planning my girlfriend and I decided to take the train to Kyoto instead. We left late in the morning and made it to Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion) shortly after one. Contrary to weather forecasts it was only partly cloudy with only about 5 minutes of sleety-snow mid-afternoon. After Kinkakuji we walked down the street to Ryuuanji (home to Japan's most famous rock-garden.) By the time we got on a bus bound for Kyoto station the clouds had cleared and it even got a little warm out. We arrived at our hotel (just around the corner from Kyoto station) at about 4pm. I thought we were a bit early but it was nice to have a chance to use the hotel's spacious Japanese-style bath before dinner. Dinner was, in true Japanese-inn style, served in our room. The chanko-nabe (the type of Japanese stew often eaten by sumo-wrestlers) served was quite delicious and very filling. After dinner we relaxed and watched TV. Sunday morning we slept in and lazily took another dip in the Japanese-style bath before packing up and heading out. The first stop on day two was Touji (home to Japan's most famous 5-story pagoda.) followed by the site of the Rashoumon (see the Kurasawa movie of the same title.) There's nothing left of the old gate, but there is a stone marker designating the place where it once stood as the South entrance to the old capitol. After lunch we walked along the Kamo river up to the Sanjo shopping area. Here we strolled around for a while before taking the subway back to Kyoto station. We ended our stay in Kyoto with a nice view of the city from the top of the station. A great end to a great trip.

Week 6

This week's "Wednesday Adventure" saw the smallest turnout in a long while with only one other person coming along in the morning, one more joining in the afternoon, and a forth only coming for dinner.

In the morning the two of us headed over to the Kobe waterfront and visited "The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Memorial". The route through the memorial starts on the forth floor with two movies; one showing re-creations of the destruction the 1995 earthquake caused and the other showing actual photos and film from that time with narration by a girl who lived through it. The second film had a lot of impact and was quite sad. The experience continues on the third floor with exhibits of items from the earthquake, more photos, and some text with statistics about the earthquake. There was also a large repository of personal recounts of the earthquake. This floor also had a guide who had okay English and guided us around. The second floor had some information about earthquakes in Japan and some small "experiments" you could do to learn more about them. All in all it was a nice memorial but not as instructional as the "disaster preparedness center" I visited in Tokyo a few years back.

After lunch we took the train down the waterfront a bit to the Nada ward of Kobe, which is famous for it's Sake breweries, and met our third tour-mate. Nada is a fairly large area so we tried our best to pick a good route to see as many breweries as possible. Unfortunately a combination of poor Japanese map making and the penchant of Japanese places to be closed on random weekdays foiled two of our prospects. The first brewery we stopped at (which we ended up asking a local for directions to) was the Takinokoi Kuramoto Club which turned out to be closed anyways. The second place we found on the map (Izumi Yunosuke Shoten) turned out to be someone's back yard, inhabited by a xenophobic old lady and a very barky dog. Third time was the charm as we located the Kobe Shu-shin-kan Brewery where, though we missed the day's 1 tour, we were treated to a nice video (in English) about Sake production followed by a sampling of a large variety of Sake. The staff here were really friendly and helpful and, even without the tour, it was a nice experience. Our last stop was the Hakatsuru Sake Brewery Museum (which I had previously visited a few years ago.) This place had a really nice museum which explains both the traditional and modern Sake brewing processes. Unfortunately the staff were a bit cool towards us which soured the experience a bit.

After a long afternoon of walking around we headed back into Osaka, to Dotonbori where we met up with another friend for dinner. We went to the Osaka outlet of "Chinese Cafe Eight" which I visited last year in Tokyo. As with the Tokyo version this shop had some... interesting decorations. In a final bit of odd luck for the day it turns out that we showed up on the evening of Chinese New Years and every table was booked. Fortunately the staff took pity on us and sat us at a table which had a later reservation, under the condition that we had a measly three hours to eat. As with the Tokyo vestion, this place also had great food at a reasonable price.

Rounding out the week I was fortunate enough to get two dates in with my lovely lady this week, including one at my favorite (literally) underground bar.

This next week has the "National Foundation Day" holiday on Friday which I'm combining with two of my paid holidays to get a nice REAL 3 day WEEKEND! I'll report back next week on how that goes...

Week 5

This past week turned out to be a bit less frantic than the previous week. The big social event this week was a tour of the Asahi Beer brewery in Suita, Osaka with the Wednesday tour crew.

The brewery itself was easy enough to find. It's plainly visible from both JR and Hankyu Suita train stations. Unfortunately, if you're coming from Hankyu station you end up at the rear gate and need to walk another kilometer, all the way around the outside of the complex, to get to the visitor's entrance (which would have been okay if we hadn't been running late at that point.) The tour itself was well presented and, although it was in Japanese, everyone who came this time spoke enough Japanese that I didn't need to translate. Fortunately the tour started with a movie (which we missed all but the last 30 seconds of) which was followed by several walkthrough exhibits of the brewing process. After that we got to see the factory floor where they brew and bottle the beer. At the end of the tour portion we had 30 minutes to sample up to three free nama (tap) beers. As brewery tours go, I think Asahi does a great job of explaining the process as simply as possible and seeing the exhibits before seeing the actual factory floor allows for a better understanding of what you're seeing.

Saturday I corrected a small issue I previously overlooked by asking the girl I've been dating to actually date me (and anyone who has my facebook info knows, she accepted.)

Last night (Sunday) I met up with some of my Canadian friends and we played board games (10 days in the americas, fluxx, and freeloader) all evening which was really fun and reminded me how much I used to like playing board games. I'm now thinking of setting up a monthly (or more often) board game night (ever the "Gamer's Guild President" am I.)

Week 4

2011 is turning out to be a busy year so far. My social calendar has filled up more-or-less through mid-February. This past week I had two dates, two factory tours, a nomikai (work party), and a concert. All that plus work and studying for the JLPT N3 (Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level New 3) makes Dockett a busy guy!

Much to the disappointment of a few of you (I'm sure), we're going to skip over the juicy part of that last paragraph and move on to the two factory tours. Six co-workers and I started at the instant Ramen Museum in Ikeda, North Osaka Wednesday morning. As the name suggests this wan't actually a factory, but a museum built near the site where the founder, Momofuku Ando, invented instant ramen. No reservations were needed for the exhibit hall which explains (in Japanese) about the history of the food. Also open to the public is a station where you can design your own Cup Noodle package and choose what "soup" flavor gets put inside. If a proper reservation is made (which somehow I missed) there's a second floor kitchen area where you can make your own noodles from scratch as well. All in all it was pretty fun for being free (+300yen to make the ramen package.)

After a lunch of cheap Chinese food (not ramen) three of our party left to go to work and we picked up one more. Our second destination of the day was the Suntory Yamazaki Distillery for a whisky tour. This time it was a tour through an operational distillery. The tour guide gave the tour in Japanese but between my listening skills, some signs written in English, and my years of working at a liquor store, I was able to translate the gist of what was going on to those in our party wo didn't understand. As might be expected at the end of a factory tour we got free samples of the 10 and 12 year old whiskeys as well as a type of Japanese liquor made in the same distillery. After sampling time was over we were shown to the gift shop which in turn exited into the "Whisky Library" were you could sample various whiskeys (and scotches) from all over the world (15ml-30ml (~1/3 - 1/2 shot)) (priced from 100yen to 2,500yen).

Friday night I went out after work with the staff of the high school I work at. It was my first time attending this kind of afterwork staff party and I've gotta say it was pretty fun seeing everyone relaxing and having a good time (though these teachers are pretty laid-back and fun to begin with.)

Last night I went to a concert at a venue just down the street. It was a "cosy" place that might only hold 100 people at full capacity but really let you get up close to the bands. It was a variety night so I got to see five new bands I haven't seen before. And this time I remembered to bring ear plugs so me ears aren't ringing this morning.

Looking forward, this week actually isn't too busy, with the highlight shaping up to be a tour of the Asahi-beer brewery in North Osaka on Wednesday.

Week 3

Going to a concert last Tuesday led to a party invitation last night. Dinner at a friend's house led to a date tonight. Who knew that being social led to being more social?

I didn't end up doing much of anything last Monday (no work, a national holiday) but it was good that I had some time to rest as the next day was a long one. I woke up at 8am Tuesday morning, packed my camera in my backpack and headed out. My first stop was Krispy Kreme doughnuts for breakfast (luckily there wasn't a line that early in the morning.) Next I took the Kintetsu train and a cable car to the top of the mountain range that divides Osaka and Nara prefectures (Mt. Ikoma.) After taking some pictures of the amusement park at the top (which was closed for the winter) I headed into Nara city for lunch. Fed and watered I took the JR train line North to Uji. Uji is in southern Kyoto near the boarder to Nara and is famous for the Phoenix Hall of Byoudo-in temple which in turn is famous for being on the back of Japanese 10 yen coins. After touring Byoudo-in (which had a lovely museum) I wandered around Uji for a bit before finally taking the Kaihan line back into Osaka. Back in the city, I headed to the evening's concert venue. It was my second time seeing the band (The 50 Kaitenz) and I, again, thoroughly enjoyed the show. After the concert a bunch of fans went to a restaurant near the concert hall for an after party (which ended with an invitation to a New Year's party being held the following Sunday). It was quite the long, rewarding day.

As for the story of the dinner that became a date... well the story's not over yet...

Week 2

No big adventures this week. Instead I decided to get a clean start to the year and sold my two year old Mac-Mini (computer) and bought a new one. I also visited a friend of a friend at the Nikon service center in Umeda (North Osaka) and got my camera cleaned.

Other than that, work started up again... slowly. There were surprisingly few (adult) students in my (adult) classes this week. I guess some people were still on vacation.

Today's day off (to mark "coming of age day") is the calendar start to another great year full of 3 day weekends (at lease one a month for the next three months, anyways.) Now, what to do...

Week 1

A new year and a fresh start on the blog. This year's goal is to expand on last year's success with updating every week. I hope to include a picture of myself as well as a brief summary of what I did in the previous week. I also plan on bringing back the longer posts about the various trips I take (of course with photos.) As they say in the neighborhood "Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu!"

To start, the highlight of this week was definitely my first experience going to a shrine on new years day. This is called hatsumode and is done to pray for a good new year as well as to receive one's fortune. I received the best fortune (daikichi) which bodes well for this year.

In other news it snowed twice in Osaka in the past week, once with flurries and once with big fluffy snow flakes (no accumulation though.)