An Art Adventure

On Saturday I joined Keiko-san and her 3 adorable children on a trip to the Matsue Art Museum on Shinji Lake. I attempt to teach her children English every other Monday, and am paid in delicious food. I feel I may spend more time playing with the kids, but she gets them out of her hair for a while. It's a win-win.

The art museum has a bunch of set pieces, as well as a rotating show. They're currently showing a bunch of artwork by young children from Matsue (you can see it for free) as well as artwork by Shinsui Ito (buy a ticket.)

The artwork was very beautiful, but I think I spent more time chasing small children around the museum that looking at it. It was very entertaining though. Reiji, who's 6, enjoyed looking at the artwork with me. Hanai, who's 3, got bored quickly and decided to kick of her shoes and lay on the bench in the middle of the gallery, and Miki, who's 1, was never interested at all. She was interested in running all over the place however.

After viewing the artwork, we went out the side door to the lake. The museum is built right next to Lake Shinji, and has a little patio/grassy area with sculptures you can go see. The kids had fun running around and sitting on the sculptures. When they grew bored of that, they found throwing twigs into the lake great fun.

This was peachy keen until Reiji was leaning over the side of the walkway looking into the lake and Miki, being the little sasspants she is, decided to push him. I tried to grab him before he went over, but only managed to catch his coat. Luckily he landed standing up, so he was only wet up to his ankles. Still, not pleasant. He seemed to take it in stride though. I helped pull him out and he just took of his socks and rolled up his wet pants, and continues to do whatever while I tried to wring his socks out. He seemed to get a kick out of telling the museum workers how Miki pushed him in. What an adventure indeed!

My ticket to the Shinsui Ito gallery.

 Miki, Hanai, and Reiji

 Miki-chan! She's so adorable. She likes me now. She says all sorts of things I can't even begin to understand.

 Reiji and Hanai. They don't seem to believe in seatbelts for anyone other than the people in the front 2 seats in this country.

 Reiji poking at Lake Shinji. This is probably right before Miki pushed him in.

 Miki throwing sticks into Lake Shinji.

 Finding more things to throw.

 The art museum from next to the lake. The tiny statues on the lawn are rabbits. It's a hopping rabbit in motion. Animation sculpture. :)

 Hanai and her postcard she got from the museum store. She was very excited about it.

 Reiji about to run up the slope.

Lake Shinji (Hanai and Reiji)

5 Things I'll Miss When I leave Japan

There's many things I miss being here in Japan, mostly mexican food, Dr. Pepper, clothing stores with sizes that fit me, and 24 hour stores like Meijer. Also perhaps being able to communicate with people. However, I have stumbled upon somethings that are going to be horrible not to have in the US, such as:

1. Fruits Milk

The little store at my high school sells this delicious fruit flavored milk. Whenever they have it, I go and buy a carton. It's gotten to the point where the woman who works behind the counter of the store saves one for me. Fruits milk is super delicious and perhaps nutritious, being milk and all.

2. Parfaits

In America it's all about the ice cream sunday. Here, it's all about the parfait. Sometimes yogurt, sometimes ice cream, usually super fancy with fresh fruit. Delicious!

3. Conbinis

Conbinis are amazing. You can get all kinds of food, alcohol, pay your bills, send money home, buy concert tickets, bus tickets, print things, make copies, send faxes, stand and read manga for hours, they're actually open 24 hours, they have ATMs that work 24 hours (in Japan, this is amazing. All other ATMs actually have hours, and times when they are closed, just like a bank,) and they have trash cans! This is also amazing, especially given how complicated it is to throw anything away here.

4. Daiso

Daiso are the very popular 100yen stores. Unlike most dollar stores in America where most things are super cheap quality and ugly and at times you feel dirty buying them (not always, just sometimes) Daiso has all sorts of quality items. They have everything, and I mean pretty much everything. Yes, sometimes the quality is not as good as if you bought it at an actual store in the mall or something, but it's significantly cheaper. Almost everything in my apartment is from Daiso. I only wish they were 24 hours.

5. Purikura

Purikura, or print club, machines are all over the place, and super popular. They're similar to photobooths in that you go in and take pictures with your friends, and it prints them for you. However, purikura prints sticker sheets, so you can give them to your friends to stick to their binders or something. The booths will also give different choices in backgrounds, framing size (just your heads to whole body,) and sticker sizes, so you have to choose which booth you prefer. Not all purikura booths are created equal. After taking 4-6 pictures, you head to the other side of a booth where you get to edit your pictures by changing the backgrounds (sometimes) adding graphics and text, and all sorts of fun. Then they print out your photo stickers and there you go!

As an added bonus, most, if not all, purikura booths mess with the lighting and your eyes to make you look more "cute." Because really, giant eyes are just adorable, right? Everyone wants to look like this!

Leopards, Leopards Everywhere!

The day after christmas, Steve and I slept in, met his friend Rebecca for lunch, and then got a 2 hour bus to Taipei. From the bus station, we walked through this huge underground mall to the subway station, where we got a train to our hostel.

What you see when exiting the subway station. 

Our hostel was the beautiful Leopard Garden, hidden behind a tall building, down an alley way, with a courtyard garden. It was absolutely covered in leopard print. I mean covered. It was very clean, and great price. We stayed in a small windowless room that managed to fit 8 beds in it by stacking them on top of each other like a cat scratching post tower thing. It was pretty sweet actually. And, even though it was just a mattress on a wooden floor, it was more comfortable than Steve's bed!

 The giant leopard couch in the main living room of the hostel. The ladder leads up to a loft area where there were mattresses.

 Past the living room, the white doors lead to 2 WCs and 2 shower rooms.

 The loft. Check out the leopard print flat screen TV.

 Steve is loving the leopard! Sneak appearance by mirror me! There was even a leopard print bicycle with the bicycles by the wall.

 My mattress, hidden behind my suitcase and that table. The other one was Steve's.

The view down the the floor from my mattress.

After dropping our stuff off and my impromptu photo shoot, we headed out to check out Taipei. We started with all the shops across the street from the subway station. There was a street performer doing yoyo tricks, and lots of people, lots of shops. Lots of branching off streets and alleys for me to get lost down.

 AKB48 cafe and shop! For those who don't know, AKB48 is an extremely popular girls group in Japan. Many of my students love them, and most ALTs love to hate them. I get their song "Heavy Rotation" stuck in my head. I introduced the music video to Steve in his apartment. It's pretty scandalous actually. So I was excited to go check out the cafe and shop. We looked at some of the fabulous merchandise I could buy, but in order to see the AKB48 museum you had to buy a drink from the cafe, and we just didn't care that much.

Then we decided to visit Taipei 101 and Shilin Night Market, the biggest night market in Taiwan. We didn't know where 101 was, but we found a picture in the subway station that listed a stop, so we got off there, then proceeded to walk many blocks in search of it. Finally, we saw it towering over the skyline and made our way to it.

 Those crazy scooter gangs, waiting for the light to turn. This isn't even that big of a group.

We found it! Only a few more blocks to go.

 We made it!

Steve is super impressed.

Taipei 101 was the world's tallest building until that crazy skyscraper in Dubai got built. However, it's LEED certified (ah, memories of my days with DR, reading all about green hotels...) so it's still the world's tallest Green building.  It's called the 101 because it has 101 floors above ground. It's also connected to a huge mall with lots of classy and expensive shops.

We ventured in, and payed our money to ride an extremely fast elevator up to the 89th floor. Sadly, due to the weather the observation deck was closed, so we couldn't go outside. The views were pretty amazing though. Steve came up with a great idea for a game, that I can't share in case someone steals it and he then blames me. But it was pretty smart and fit the touristy appeal perfectly.

 The screen in the elevator, showing us flying up the building. My ears were popping like whoa.

 For exorbitant amounts of money, you could purchase a souvenir photo of yourself hanging off the building. We found this picture and decided to make our own for free. and by we, and I mean I decided and Steve got forced into it.

 You know you're up high when other skyscrapers look small.

 This building had a rose on it's roof. Pretty sweet. 

 The giant damper ball thing. This is what makes the building able to withstand strong gusts of wind, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Check out the cute Taipei 101 mascot. They were everywhere, in all colors.

We got coupons for overpriced snacks. Apparently, beer floats are a popular item. Sounds disgusting to me. Also, the legal drinking age is 18. I didn't know that.

After riding back down the elevator, we found a free shuttle bus that took us back to the subway station. From there we rode the subway to the Shilin Night Market. It was huge and there were people everywhere! I got omiyage for people and of course drank more bubble tea. Mostly we took in the sights.

More night market crowds.

Around 11:30 we were pretty exhausted so we found the subway station (harder than it sounds) and caught what was probably one of the last trains back to the hostel. We made up our mattresses with the provided leopard print sheets, brushed our teeth, I befriended the person on the mattress next to me, who turned out to be Japanese, then crashed.

We got up at 9:15 and left the hostel, me to catch my flight back to Japan, Steve to meet up with a friend. We said goodbye at the subway station, where I got train to take me to the bus station. The day before Steve and I stopped by the bus station to see how it all worked, and were informed that buses leave for the airport every 13 minutes and take about half an hour to get there. So I thought I'd get to the airport in plenty of time. When I got to the bus station, I bought a ticket for the next bus available, which left at 10:30. It made me a little nervous that it cut into my 2 hour pre-fllight time, but figured it would be okay. The bus then took little detours all over Taipei to pick up more passengers before getting on a traffic infested highway. 1 hour and 30 minutes later we finally made it to the airport. I was flipping out to say the least. It was 12:05, and my plane was due to take off at 12:30. And I still had to get through security and customs. This was not good. I ran to the service counter to check in. The lady working told me I was rather late, as if I was unaware. I think she could tell I was about to cry, so she told me to wait a minute while she figured out what she could do. Luckily I packed my travel shampoo and conditioner, because it was too late to check my suitcase. Instead, I got a personal escort through security, where I got to skip ahead of a bunch of people and they barely checked my stuff, then escorted through customs, where Chinese was spoken for me and I was rushed through. I was walked directly to my gate and onto my plane, just in time for it to start taxiing about 8 minutes later. I think I was a bit of a mess, and dying of thirst of running through all that, and hungry, as I planned to grab some breakfast at the airport while waiting for my plane. However, I successfully made it back into Japan, got the hour long airport bus ride back to Osaka Station, where I spent 6 hours exploring the area around the station, and then caught my over night bus back to Matsue. I arrived in Matsue at 6:50 the next morning, got a taxi back to my apartment (that was a challenge, trying to explain the driver where I lived) and then crashed. My sleep schedules appears that it will never be the same.

But it was a pretty amazing trip.

On Joining Scooter Cults

I'll interrupt my reminiscing about Dougyoretsu to reminisce about a slightly newer happening, my trip to Taiwan! As some of you know, my good friend Steve (of giant afro fame,) is an English teacher in Taiwan. (minus the afro, so sad really.) For christmas, since a plane ticket home would have been a ridiculous price, I thought it would be dandy to hang out with Steve, since we're at least on the same side of the planet. Unfortunately for him, he didn't really get a christmas/winter break, as they are more into celebrating the Chinese new year. However, I did get a break, so I decided to plan a 1 person invasion into his apartment. How exciting! He pretended to be happy to see me, so it was a win-win.

I left my apartment at 7:30 in the morning to figure out how to get to the Matsue bus station to catch my 8:40 bus. The station is only 10-20 minutes away (depending on traffic) driving, but has no place to park, not that I wanted to leave my car there anyway, especially because I'm sure it would be crazy expensive. So I figured I'd walk at a last resort, but attempt to catch a local bus there. After a little bit of a walk to find the right bus stop, I somehow managed to get the correct bus to the station. Huzzah! Of course, I was ridiculously early, so I got to sit outside for 35 mins freezing my bum off. A great start! A 4 hour 30 minute bus ride later I was in Osaka, Japan, and now had to find the bus that would take me Kansai airport. After wandering lost in the humongous station and failing to be able to read the kanji on the maps, I figured out I was in the wrong building, and managed to find the line for the airport bus. An hour long ride later, I was at the airport. The airport is pretty cool in the fact that it's in the middle of the bay, and you have to drive across a huge bridge to get to it. I guess when you run out of room for airports, you just build them on top of the water. Got to chill in the airport for a few hours. yay.

The flight was fine, I was seated next to a lovely Taiwanese girl and her mother, but more on them later. I got a cute and delicious bento to eat, and watched Cowboys & Aliens. Not a great movie, but Daniel Craig sure is pretty.

Yum! The white tray lifted up to reveal more delicious food. 

So my plane was supposed to land at 9:15, but due to weather, it didn't actually land until 9:30ish. By then I had made friends with my seatmate, the cute Taiwanese girl who had amazing English. They asked where I was going, and when I told them Taichung, asked how I was getting there. Steve had informed to follow signs for the shuttle bus to the HSR (high speed rail) station and to call him on a pay phone from there, so he'd know when to expect me. When I told them that, they offered to drive me to the station saying saying they could get there faster than the shuttle, and I could use her cell phone to call Steve. SO NICE! By the time I got off the plane and through the ridiculously long customs line, it was about 10pm, much later than I (and Steve!) thought it would be. Cute Taiwanese girl and her adorable father, mother, and who I assumed to be her brother squished me and my luggage into their car (so NICE!!!!) and hailtailed over to the HSR station, where she walked me into the station, helped me buy my ticket, and let me call Steve on her phone again. I bought a ticket for a train that was due in 10 minutes, and it was the last one of the evening!Phew!  After thanking her profusely, I boarded the train and an hour later arrived in Taichung. Steve was there (no fro. :( ) to take me to his apartment on his scooter! Despite the fact that it was midnight (meaning1 am to my Japan time adjusted body) we stopped for soup. I then crashed on his really hard bed. After roughly 17 hours of travel, I had made it! Yay!

Steve and his scooter. (not taken when he picked me up. hence the daylight.)

Steve went to work the next morning while I slept like a dead person. When he returned and woke me up after noon, we went for bubble tea (YES!) and to show me around Taichung. We went so Steve could buy a new blanket since it was getting cold (he kept saying that. Felt pretty warm to me! But that's probably just compared to Matsue, where it was snowing at the time.) Hung out, I helped Steve look to see if he won anything on his receipts. Basically every receipt you get has a lottery number on it, and you can look at a website to see the winning lottery numbers. If your receipts match some or all of the numbers, you won a prize or cash. Steve had quite a backlog of receipts to look through.

 Views from Steve's apartment.

My first bubble tea in Taiwan!

It has clear jellies, not normal tapioca bubbles in it. YUM!

 A pile of receipts we checked the numbers on. Steve didn't win anything.

 Steve's balcony.

 Steve's beautiful new blanket. I talked him into buying a purple one, since it's his favorite color, but he couldn't handle the flowers on it, and 5 stores down, turned back and swapped it out for this beauty. It has leaves and little flowers, not big flowers so it's more manly.

 The apartment!

 Kitchen area. There's not even a hot plate! and I thought my kitchen was bad. Though I do envy the cabinets! Also, you can't drink the water in Taiwan, you have to buy it bottled. Which Steve informed me, AFTER I had already brushed my teeth and drank some.

 Entry way/kitchen/closet.

 Jorgie showing off the bathroom.

 See that trashcan next to the toilet? Not your normal trash can! The pipes in Taichung can't handle toilet paper be flushed. So, instead of flushing it down, you wipe, and then throw it in that trashcan, which you buy special scented bags for. I'm sorry, but that is disgusting. Steve says you get used to it pretty fast, but I'm still disgusted.

 Steve! Still fro-less.

That evening we attempted to find a night market in Taichung, which resulted in a scenic tour of the city from the back of Steve's scooter. After seeing all sorts of roads and buildings we hadn't planned on seeing, Steve found the correct road to get us there, and found a place to park his scooter. 

An aside if you will, scooters are huge in Taiwan. HUGE. Everyone has them. They are everywhere. Parked on sidewalks, parked on road sides, most are parked illegally, but there's literally no where else to park, so everyone seems to park their scooters illegally. Scooters also rule the roads. They go faster then the cars on the roads, weave through traffic, and go past the cars to the front when stopped at a traffic light. While sitting at a light (on the correct side of road, unlike Japan!) you can stop and notice that you are surrounded by scooters. I felt like I was in a motorcycle gang, or would that be a scooter gang. 

In Japan, scooters are a pain in the butt. They go slower then the cars, and you get stuck behind them on the narrow roads. You finally manage to get around them and go a normal speed again, when you get stopped at a light. The stupid scooter then squeezes by you on the side of the road and you have to do it all over again. Luckily, in Matsue, there's not really a lot of people on scooters. Also luckily, this is not what scooters are like in Taiwan. You don't get stuck behind a slow scooter. They leave the cars in their dust.

Anyway, back to the night market. Very cool. Stores will open all their doors and put out tables and items in front of them, there are food stalls all over the place. Very crowded, hard to walk, but great deals to be found, and they sell basically everything somewhere in there. There's little alley ways leading to different shops, and about 5 meters in, I knew I wasn't going to be able to find my way back out. Luckily, Steve could. :)  I got a cool leather jacket so I could look hardcore in the scooter gang (also because it was to warm for my winter jacket. Dying of heat in that thing. and I wanted one!) And I got a fluffy bear hat, because it really did match perfectly with said leather jacket. (It doesn't match at all. really. but I still love it, even if I look ridiculous in it and Steve made fun of it.) And of course delicious food and bubble tea! Some sights: (I tried taking more pictures, but most turned out too dark or too blurry. sigh)

 This is a children's clothes store. Go figure.

 I don't really know. I was just amused by the toast.

 Candy covered strawberries. on a stick. YUM!

Where I got yummy scallion pancakes.

The next morning was CHRISTMAS! YAY! Steve finally opened the christmas present I got him, and we went to play basketball in the park near his house with some of his co-workers. My team somehow managed to win, not due to any help from me. Then we met Steve's friend Timmy, and took of to visit the National Art Museum, with a small detour to see bumblebee.

Interactive art! It was a puzzle about getting people on a boat to the other side of the river!

Timmy, Me, Rebecca (Steve's coworker)

We gathered a large crowd watching us shove these pieces around, but in the end we solved it! Yay!

Giant pillow! Complete with chair surrounded by mushroom lamps and slippers.

After the museum, we went out for christmas dinner and ate yakiniku! (grilled meat) You grill your own meat, and it's all you can eat for 2 hours. Plus all you can eat ice cream and all you can drink soft drinks and juice. I'm sure there was probably tea too. (you know I'm all about this!) We finished the evening watching Love Actually in Rebecca's apartment. What a good, if slightly abnormal, christmas!

Steve rocking my bear hat.