Kobe

Himeji Castle

For The Girls.

天神 The city of Tenjin : The capital of the southern island of 九州.

桜 Sakura trees : Cherry Blossom, Japanese people love this stuff.

高良山 Koura Mountain : Is a small mountain.

柳川 Yanagawa : Is a few stations away from where I am, I thought it might be worth a look, it wasn't really.

For the boys : Pictures of little interest to women, trust me women, don't look.

富士 Mt Fuji : Pictures were taken from the 新幹線 bullet train.

上野 Ueno : The place I first started in Japan.

久留米 Kurume, the place where I stayed.

Working Holiday 2004

In 2004 I went on a working holiday. This blog is a conversion of the website that I made for that trip. As such the posts are in no particular order. I hope you enjoy it.

Black Castle

長崎 Nagasaki

Tonbi - トンビ

Fun Japanese Facts 2

• Want to be a supermodel ? Well you can get the "Model Credit Card" and be on your way.
• Like Aubrey Hepburn ? Well get the Aubrey Hepburn credit card.

• Want to lose weight fast ? Go on the "Micro Diet", just replace two meals with a drink, and you too, can compete in the micro-diet beauty pageant / weight loss Olympics.
• Need some non-prescription medicine, then go to "Drug-Eleven", It is the 24hr Convenience Drug store. Sort of like Priceline in Aus.
• Big chain stores (as they call them here) like Myer, or Dick Smith, play their shop anthem, it is either like some footy song, or a wiggles song. Either way, it is sung by people with high pitched voices, and kind of annoys you in a very short period of time. And shopping centers have their own anthems too. There is a store called , Yamada Denki (Yamada Electrical) and its theme song uses the tune from the old arcade game "Bubble Bobble".
• When you ask a shop, if they have something, that seems obvious to you, and they do not have it, when you ask them "why ?" they seem shocked, that I could ask such a question. e.g.. There is a takoyaki shop that sells takoyaki, okonomiyaki and noodles. You can get them by themselves, or takoyaki and noodles, or okonomiyaki and noodles, but not takoyaki and okonomiyaki, when I asked why the did not sell that combination, the guy looked at me with an expression of "you as so rude, how dare you insult my shop by asking why."

湯布院 Yufuin : Went here on the way back from Beppu.

Nagasaki Nights

Big 4WD in Kurume [久留米市]

I remember I was out one day, wandering the streets as I often did to kill time in Japan, and this 4WD came past. not sure how it was legal to have such massive wheels.. Anyway I took some photos for people to enjoy

Fun Japanese Facts 1

• Don't have time to read a book, have it read to you (on CD or Cassette) 1.5, 2 time faster then normal speed. (there was other info, it could have been even faster, but I am not sure.)
• An apple the size of a grapefruit costs 500 yen, a little over $6
• Credit card transactions go through on one day a month, so if you buy it today, it may not show up till next month. (and you can split them up, and have your expensive item, charged to your credit card over many months)
• For me to travel from the city I am in, to the next major city, it costs me about $14, this is a 30 min train ride. This is also where the nearest ATM I can use is.
• Pork and Beef, are expensive, so to make it cheaper, and look more, they cut it thin. To compare to something in Safeway, sometimes it is like shaved ham, and sometimes like sliced ham.
• Did you ride your bike to the station ? Is it raining ? Well ride home, holding an umbrella in one hand.
• Want to join a gym in Japan ? Make sure you have a nice fresh new pair of runners, to change into when you get to the gym. No shoes that have touched the street are allowed. Walk in, take off your shoes, go to the shoe area, and change into your clean shoes, go into the gym.
• Going to a fast food place, to get "fresh" からげ fried chicken, this involves re-heating some fried chicken that was prepared earlier. Yuck !!!
• Apparently it is "cute" to talk in a high pitched whiney voice (only women do this), I dunno, I just want to say ごちゃごちゃうな!!! (Stop whinging)
• When you take your dog for a walk, it is optional to actually let your dog do some walking.
• In trendy shops, all the shop assistants dress the same, have the same hair and makeup. It is trendy this way, I guess. They look like the singer, Ayumi Hamasaki.
• Before you have a bath, make sure you have a shower, to make yourself clean. Baths are just for soaking in.
• In Diamaru, there are counters, that look like sales counters, with girls standing at them, so when you go to buy something, the girl runs off with your money, and the item, and says wait here (I think). They then run to the cash registers, and returns a moment later with your item, and the change.
• In the 100 yen shop, near where I live, they continually, at about 30 seconds intervals yell out, (in the annoying high pitched voice) いらしゃいませ which means welcome. A few minutes of this, and I wonder why Japan is not a more violent place, I certainly want to shut them up.
• Toothpaste contains sugar.
• Young high school boys greet me in the street, in a kind of stereotypical, black American, TV greeting.

The girl being dragged by a man in the street, begging for help and the police.

Time : Monday April 6th, around midnight.

Place : On the street below my apartment..

I am listening to some music, over which I hear a strange noise coming from outside, the sound of a woman screaming. I go out onto the balcony, and in the street below, I see a man dragging a woman, who is crying and asking for help and the police. Also down there is another girl, looking somewhat overpowered by the man, in her attempts to help this girl, or at least find out what is going on.

だいじょぶですか？(are you ok) I yell in a deep voice from my balcony. After some Japanese I don't understand, the man said "Yes no problem, go away." Strange answer I thought, but the woman was continually sobbing something in Japanese, and the key words けせつ (police) and たすける（help). At which point the man would try to drag her even more, which was met by even louder screams from the woman.

"Help" and "Police", I have no idea what is going on, but I have to go down, at least to give moral support to the Japanese girl struggling to help the screaming woman.

When I got down there, the girl trying to help looks somewhat relived, and had the expression of, if only you spoke Japanese. I asked again, are you ok, and again the man said ok, go away, I just said うるさい (shut up) and waited for the woman to answer. She was just sobbing, and a little calmer knowing that another man was here, and might help her.

Apparently, (according to the guy) they have been engaged for 2 years, and he loves her very much. I could tell how much he loved her, by the fear in her eyes, and the pathetic おねがいします she would add to the end of whatever she was saying, as she grabbed onto my leg, so the man would not take her.

The other girl was trying to calm the situation, but the crying woman, did not want to go with the man, who insisted she should.

At this point, a local shop owner arrived, he was taking his dog for a walk, in typical Japanese style. Holding the dog in your arms, and walking around the street with it.

He said to me "Hey man, what's going on?", I told him I had no idea, but she is asking for the police, and for help. I asked them how old they were, she was 32 and he was 53. He said he was a doctor, but of what, it did not make me think, "oh ok, silly me, off I go."

After the guy with the dog had spoken to the old man, he said to me, protect her, I will be back. His dog was tired from all the exercise and excitement had to take him home, a couple of minutes later he was back on his bike.

I told him that the police had been called, and we were just waiting for them to arrive, my flat mate had called the police. After what seemed like a long time, they finally arrived.

While we were waiting, the man said, that we could have her (the crying girl) he would give her to us, and we could look after her forever. The situation was so strange.

First one police car arrived, and stopped at a distance, I beckoned them over, and they came. Then two more patrol cars arrived, they got out of the car, and quickly assessed the situation, concluding that I might have had something to do with it. Dog guy quickly set them straight, pointing at the strange man.

They started taking statements from people, and three remaining police men were arguing about who would talk to me, the westerner. One finally came over, and in sheepish English asked me my name, I told him my name, and the story of why I was there, in the best Japanese I could come up with. Even though I made mistakes like pointing at my ears, meaning to say "I heard", but instead said "I saw".

At this point 4 more police cars arrived, realised there was nothing they could do, and stood around, like road workers waving the red light wands.

At this point I was free to go home, as was dog guy, but the girl, was asked to go with them. So the guy, crying girl, and the first girl to help went off to the police station (in separate cars). Why not, there were 7 police cars to pick from.

I am sure the girl was just drunk, and angry at the man, and that it was just a misunderstanding, as the guy, apart from trying to drag the girl back to his apartment, did not strike me as being a violent guy, he was a small old short guy.

I am sure I will never find out the truth, but I slept better, knowing that the police were dealing with it.

別府 Beppu : I stayed at a hot spring hotel