Saturday, May 27, 2006

Adventures!

Alright, so that seems to have worked.

On to my next adventures. Lee and I set off to the "Internationl Library" in the Peace Park Museum on Thursday morning. The Peace Park itself is quite amazing, had it not been packed full of school kids I:m sure it would be quite peaceful too. Quite a few of the schoolkids had obviously been given the task of interviewing any gaijin they could find. I obliged the first group that found me , but once it became obvious that we were about to descended upon by many many more groups we made a quick escape from the park. Heading directly west from the park we decided to navigate the little backstreets of Hiroshima until we reached the trees on the edge of town. This took a suprisingly short amount of time so we kept going up and up and up into the ever-steeper hills surrounding Hiroshima until the heat and humidity got the better of us.

Thankfully, even right on the edge of Hiroshima, one can find vending machines stocking my now favourite drink "Aquarius" in 500mL cans for ¥120. Quick aside, one thing that puzzles me enormously is despite the myriad vending machines dotting the city, you never seem to see anyone drinking! I see people buy drinks but then they rush off to somewhere... no doubt a secret drinking hall where no gaijin has ever been allowed entry.

On our walk up through the hills we passed a few shrines and other such interesting sights, but I:m afraid until I start work and get one of the Japanese-speaking staff members to accompany me, I won:t be able to buy camera and post photos up here. Stomachs grumbling we headed back towards the skyscrapers.

We had a brilliant bit of luck on our return journey through likewise tiny backstreets when we stumbled right into a tiny okonomiyaki restaurant (no idea what the Japanese would refer to it as, yet). We managed to order ourselves an okonomiyaki each and sat down at the enormous L-shaped bench which was 90% cooktop with the other customers (3 beer-drinking labourers and one cool-as-can-be 20-something guy reading manga). I really wish I could have taken photos of the chef as she prepred our lunch, it was quite an amazing spectacle, particularly since it all happens right in front of you. Once ready the chef simply drags it across the cooktop to you and you begin wolfing it down armed with a metal blade/spatula contraption. To say it was delicious is definitely an understatement. I am most certainly on a mission to try as many different okonomiyaki places as I can, now.

I'm about to be kicked out of the netcafe now, so a quick summary of other interesting things as I'm not sure when I'll be back online again.

Yesterday and today have been warm but very wet so I've spent most of my time investigting Hiroshim's galleries and museums. Seeing Dali's "Dream of Venus" was quite an experience.

I did my first big food shop at a supermarket 2 blocks from my appartment. This place was absolutely enormous and I recognised only maybe 5% of the goods. I'm definitely going to have to get a book on cooking seafood as it is so much cheaper than beef or pork or chicken. Bread is ¥300 for a 10slice miniloaf and Ballentine's whiskey is ¥1,490 for a 700mL bottle. I love this country. A tray of gyoza ready-to-cook is only ¥248 so I can see myself going through a huge amount of them.

I got to experience the downside of asking Japanese people for help while at the supermarket. "Sumimasen, chirisosu wa doko desuka?" (Excuse me, where is the chilli sauce?) I asked an elderly woman. She replied with a rapid fire answer that left me staring blankly. Before I could finish saying "Wakarimasen" (I don:t understand) she grabbed me by the hand and took me to the end of the aisle, pointing in the direction of aisle 6 she repeated "ROKU" slowly for my benefit then smiled and resumed her shopping. I made a mental note of where my chilli sauce could be found and resumed my own shopping but less than 30 seconds later the lady was grabbing my hand again and this time dragged me all the way to the chilli sauce and would not leave me until said sauce was in my basket. "Domo arigato gozaimasu!" (Thank you very much) I said and after we both bowed to each other she left with an expression on her face I am beginning to realise means "last time I help a bloody gaijin...".

Time for me to head off. I'm sure the many red-blooded males with a taste for Japanese girls that are reading this would rather I spent some time going into detail about all the cute girls I have met, but that can wait for another time.

Lee has organised dinner and drinks with some girls from work tonight, Saturday I'll hopefully get to see the baseball live with Wes and on Sunday Lee has his Nova funded welcome party with all you can eat all you can drink karaoke madness. Should be fun!

Missing everyone in Austrlia plenty. Feel free to email me at swfenton at gmail dot com. Would love to be kept up to date on the haps of Melbourne town.

For now, sayonara.