backblog 4: culture day 文化の日

last tuesday was culture day (a public holiday) which meant no uni (hoorahh). a group of us decided that we needed to appreciate japan not just for cheap booze and greasy delights but for its rich culture and history.
thankfully living in the kansai region provided us with many near-by destination choices. eventually we decided on Nara 奈良 (capital of Japan from 710 to 784) to get our culture on.
we had been enjoying balmy un-Autumn like weather ever since we arrived in Kobe so we were shocked to find that the city dropped what felt like 10 degrees within two hours the night before. consequently, our culture day was a little colder than what we were accustomed to and a mini-all nighter (which was just supposed to be quiet drinks at the pub) the night before put a little strain on our spirits initially but things most definitely improved through out the day.
we caught the misleading "rapid express" train to Nara expecting to arrive in about 45 minutes (probably out of sheet ignorance). An hour and a half later, we arrived in the old capital.

weeeee! in nara at last!

marc, lilly, thomas, yume (me) and mari in front of Go-ju-no-to pagoda in ko-fukuji

So we did what we came here to do -- enjoy the sights of old Japan and freeze a little bit in the process.

after a long (and much deserved) lunch break, the culture gang arrived at Todai-ji where deers roam its grounds freely. sika deers are regarded as messengers of gods in the shinto religion and are treated with respect. you can purchase biscuits to feed the deers as well but good luck trying to get them to eat it. the deers are perpetually full due to the handfuls of tourists that visit the parks with the deer biscuits in hand. i tried to feed the deers but after facing rejection after rejection from the spoilt ones, i ended up feeding some fish in the pond instead.

this deer didn't mind being photographed with.

this is a rare type of shika deer found only on culture days

nara is also famous for having the biggest buddha in japan so after strolling through the deer-filled park, we arrived at the Daibutsuden (Great Buddha Hall) to gaze in awe at its sheer size.

The photographs really do it no justice. This buddha was HUGE.

marc, our lovely tour guide for the day, told us that there was a hole in a wooden pillar the same size as the buddha's nostril you can squeeze through within the Daibutsuten which, upon successfully coming out the other end, give you good luck. since the only people i could see attempting the squeeze were little kids, i was a little reluctant to try at first (to avoid publicly embarrasing myself should i get stuck inside this "nostril") but after witnessing both marc and thomas (who are both taller than me) successfully squeezing through said hole, i decided to give it ago.
boy i wish i wore pants that day. old ladies going "oooh we can see up her skirt" whilst i was wiggling through the hole didn't exactly make the process smooth-sailing. it also didnt help that about two seconds before we decided to attempt the hole squeeze a big group of japanese school kids on a school excursion decided to become spectators. nevertheless i made it through and hopefully now have good luck. i DID find a 100 yen coin on the ground about half an hour...



after snacking on some takoyaki we decided that we were satisfied for the day and headed back home to kobe. we were so exhausted that we all ended up falling asleep on the train.

good work team, looking forward to our next cultural experience. :)

we all felt super japanese falling asleep on the train

n.b. some photo credits go to my fellow culture gang members lilly and lucia

guess who...

last night after odin fed us delicious kimchi nabe for dinner (thanks dad!), i popped by to one of our favourite new watering holes nicknamed the "Buta-bar" in Motomachi　元町 (actually called Time Trip). why? because of this little pet they keep in the bar...

Inappropriately named "Roast" (or more accurately "Ro-su" ロース in Japanese), it hangs around our feet and entertains us while we sip on cheap booze whilst listening to cool jazz. it's incredibly cute and will jump relatively high in the air for peanuts. should i feel guilty about making bacon and eggs this morning? probably...

anyway, at the Buta-Bar (buta being pig in Japanese) a couple of us got chatting to the locals. the game they seem to like to play is "Guess the Gaijin's Nationality" and they really struggled with me. first they guessed German. (!?) then Russian. (!?) then French. (!?) they were definitely convinced i was European of some sort. then i gave them a hint that i was a 'mix' to which they replied Amercian. (!?) Eventually after travelling the world we reached Australia. with a big hint of me being able to speak native japanese not giving anything away, they further struggled for a couple more minutes until they shyly asked "Japan?" to which i nodded in despair as i slipped into another one of those "WHAT AM IIIIII!?!?!" moments.... but not really.

thanks for playing guys, you were terrible contestants!

also, to follow on from yesterday's gutterminded theme, Buta-bar also stocks "Sperm Shots"

If you look closely, the label says "Ich komme". You don't even need to know German to understand what THAT means.

boobs

...available at your local kobe chinatown (Kobe Nankinmachi) for 'stress relieving' purposes. if anyone fancies a boob in the mail, give me a holler.

i can also provide you with this little number:


holy crap it's a panda on the can! (pun intended). also available from the same china town store.

and to continue on the gutterminded nature of this post, i leave you with this monument i came across yesterday in the city:

i should have realised that it was an anchor (with kobe being a port city and all) but i was too distracted by the suss-ness of it in this angle. yes call me gutterminded. but i wasn't the one that pointed it out. thanks thomas.

swine flu

...illness of a different nature, i came to the realisation that i had three of these between the hours of 7pm and 2am last night.

um they're 100 yen (aud 1.20) so how could one resist?

it did fuel me for the night for wacky activities... as much as i love sannomiya, i feel like we have exhausted a lot of the clubs/bars lately. time to start searching for more clubs and funky bars i say. by the way ben, i dont know what it is you're trying to attempt in this photo...

i am taking over the world...

...one product at a time.

this is yume's town

backblog 3: friends

so apparently i have friends. in fear of forgetting someone (or realising that they aren't friends of mine after all), i won't name anyone.

halloween shenanigans

i've even got a so called "exchange family" with an aussie mother, a breakdancing father, a rather feminine and tea loving british step-father, a couple of french-flaired sisters, a promiscuous brother and maybe even a grandma (i'm looking at you, polish tv show fiend!)

countries of origin include australia, america, korea, poland, germany, england, japan, france and more. there are five aussies in total, three from UQ (myself included) and two from Western Australia. i've also made friends with some cool japanese locals, a nigerian bartender, another club owner who gives me free drinks, crazy people who walk around with cats on leashes and people who i "infrared" telephone numbers/email addresses with when slightly drunk. (more on "infrared"-ing sometime later...)

first night out in kobe (sorry about the unflattering picture) xx

they're all great and i'm sure that i will be blogging more about them in due course.

ka-ra-o-ke ok!

you're not partying in japan like a local until you hit up one of these joints...

this is what i have been doing on five separate occasions.

note basim's emotional rendition of "i don't wanna miss a thing" and thomas' heart-felt performance of "umbrella" caught on camera and exposed to the world. there is no shame when karaokeing!

i got a little carried away in my first week of kobe... so much so that i karaoked four times in one week. after attending karaokeholics anonymous, i have now cut back to about once (or twice) a month.