Friday, July 28, 2006

japan: day one and two

Hey kids, I am in the foreign land, aka Japan, aka Osaka right now. It is hot as hell as and I am actually kind of used to it already. I arrived a couple of days ago in Osaka, but went straight to Kyoto to meet Jesse’s Mom. The first night, we just walked around a little and went out for dinner. I had my first "problematic" Japanese restaurant experience: I ordered a dish called Vegetable Spaghetti, but when the waitress brought me my meal, there were bacons in it. WTF!?!?!? After a short discussion with the waitress, she showed me the menu and pointed to a very small print below Vegetable Spaghetti that said "with or without bacons". Anyways, I ended up picking all the bacons off my spaghetti, I was kind of disgusted and it was not fun!

During the second day in Kyoto, Jesse and I went to check out some temples in the morning and just walked around residential areas. We then meet Jesse’s mom at Starbucks (btw, I am in so love with Shaken Lemon Green Tea). We took the train to the Shijo-dori and Kawaramachi-dori area, where the shopping arcade is located. Shopping arcades are freaking crazy in Japan, they are these outdoor malls that extend to about the length of a thousand football fields... well, maybe not a thousand, but you get the idea. But seriously, there are like thousands of stores at the shopping arcade in Kyoto! It was totally overwhelming!!! We also checked out the Kamo-gawa river and old old temple at night: both were very beautiful.

Jesse and I took the train back to Osaka that same night. I met his roommate Shane, and we went to a bar near his apartment. Apparently, Shane has gone to a bar for 61 days straight. Oh, and I found out not only do you don’t tip at restaurant in Japan, you don’t need to tip at clubs/bars neither, how great is that! Afterward, we ran into Jesse’s friend, Audrey, and bought some food and alcohol and went to "the river", a popular hangout spot among Jesse and his friends. There, we meet up with Jesse’s Japanese replacement of me, Barry. He is a pretty crazy guy as he showed up with a bag-full of fireworks. We drank and set up explosives... anyways, this post is getting a little too long, so I’ll just have to end it right now... I’ll update again very soon... probably later today... or tomorrow.

go see my Kyoto pictures here

6 comments:

roro said...

about damn time jackman, i was beginning to get a little worried, I tried calling Jesse's cell phone a few times and just got that weird lady... anyways, i had a dream about you and Jesse last night, that you guys got into this huge samurai fight and had these big ass swords... was it true?? Anyways, I will try to call you guys again this weekend!

xo
Robin

Anonymous said...

Yay updates! AKA I hate you. (so much right now!) do you know that music video? It is good-school. Welcome to my world with the meat problems, thank god starbucks is the same E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. Three cheers for globalization (not). Anyway, have fun!

Jackman said...

robin, we sure had a samurai fight and we are both missing an eye now... liam, do you know how to say "no meat" or "vegetarian" in japanese?

Anonymous said...

Hahahaha, here's the trick: if you say 'meat' which is 'niku', they will think you only mean beef and pork, so sometimes you have to be more specific. Uhhhh.... I guess try 'watashi wa vegetarian (bejetarian)desu kara, ikimono wo tabete wa ikemasen/ ikimono ga taberaremasen.' Which is just kind of a general 'living things' that they should understand to mean fish as well. Random words include: niku - meat, toriniku - chicken/bird, buta - pig, sakana - fish.

Tricia said...

HOLY JEALOUSNESS!!!! It's good to know you got there safe and I hope that you haven't caved and eaten a huge piece of steak. OMIGAWD! What do the Japanese American Apparel staff look like? Do they only wear underwear and look like hustlers too? Lastly.. maybe you should take this time to detox from the aspartaine (sp?) It might be good for you :) I'll e-mail you soon!
Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Holy, gosh, jeeze louis, for serial!