Weekend trip

I went away for the weekend to visit Osaka, Nara and Kobe. I took the Willer bus as a cheaper alternative to the shinkansen. I'd recommend it if you're going from Nagoya to Osaka; it's somewhat longer than the train ride but the scenery is nice, if you're not in a hurry. If you book at least a couple of weeks in advance you can get a small discount.

This same bus company does quite a few routes around Japan, including overnight buses, which might be a good option if you want to travel overland without such high prices as the shinkansen.

Osaka, Nara and Kobe are, I think, all places where you could see the main spots in a day each. Of course if you stayed longer you could do them more justice and see more in each, but I felt like I got a good taster of the highlights of each. (As opposed to Kyoto, which is also in the area; I think it's better to give Kyoto at least 2-3 days.)

For three cities that are so near each other - very easy and quite cheap to travel to Nara and Kobe from Osaka - the three are quite different. Nara offers old-style Japanese charm, with lots of little meandering streets with Japanese-style architecture, small cafes, temples, shrines, gardens. Kobe is more of a bright, modern harbour city, which reminded me quite a bit of Yokohama and struck me as a good place to live. Osaka is a lively city of tall buildings, second only to Tokyo as a hub of business, nightlife and energy.

Travelling around there reminded me again how lucky I am to be living in Japan, where I can go out my own front door and see places like these without even taking a plane.

Ukai

Ukai, or cormorant fishing, on the Nagara river 

Fireworks light up the night sky. All around me, people look up from their elaborate bento dinner boxes, turning around for a better look out the back of the boat. The ukai is beginning, and it's the last one of the year.

Ukai is cormorant fishing, a tradition dating back 1300 years. I am in Gifu city, capital of Gifu prefecture, and the cormorant fishing is the town's major tourist draw. 

The sightseeing boats

In ukai, cormorants go out with a fishing boat. They've been trained to catch fish, with a ring around their necks to prevent their swallowing them. Each boat is manned by three or four men: the master, who supervises the birds, hauling them back onto the boat when they get a catch. There's also someone to take care of the fire, an assistant, in the middle, and a helmsman at the back.

Here in Gifu, there are six boats that set out each evening, each boat with a fire bobbing from the bow, sending sparks out into the night. The job of cormorant master is passed down through families, and the current masters are a mix of young and old. Every day, the order of boats to set out is determined by lot, as the first boat to leave gets best pick of the fish.

We in the tourist boats wait by the riverbank for the ukai boats to pass. We were sent off with enthusiastic taiko drumming by some local kids, and waited on the boat, eating and drinking and watching a passing boat of girls dancing with fans.

The fireworks mark the beginning of the the ukai, and it's not long before we see the boats themselves. The cormorants are tethered to the boats, which are gliding slowly along in the water, and bobbing, diving and swimming around in a mess of dark shapes. Every now and then, the master will dive forward to grab one of them out of the water and wrest a fish from its beak, before throwing it back in.

These cormorants don't have a bad deal. It takes time to train cormorants to fish; the fisherman obviously want to take good care of them. They're brought in from another prefecture, which sells cormorants to those 12 locations in Japan that practise cormorant fishing. They only wear the neck rings while fishing, and the fishing itself took less than an hour. Their lifespan is far higher than those of wild cormorants.

The fish themselves are sold to the hotels along the Nagara river bank, and they don't go cheap! I heard they can fetch 7000 yen per fish!

If you're interested in seeing ukai for yourself, well, you've missed the ukai season in Gifu for this year (it was May 11 - October 15), but there may be other places you can see it.  

Regarding this ukai in Gifu, it costs around 3000-3300 yen. You can choose from three departure times. If you go with your friends and want to make a fun night of it, choose an earlier time and bring food and booze; you can enjoy more of a festival atmosphere. If you just want to see the ukai, you can take the later slot; all three departures will observe the same ukai. I think it was worth seeing, but the actual time we spent able to see the boats clearly was only a few minutes.

One other good thing about Gifu is that it's not that difficult to get to the ukai site. Gifu is only 20 minutes from Nagoya; then the bus to Nagarabashi (the stop nearest the ukai fishing) is another 15 minutes. This bus is easy to find - platform 11 at Gifu station - and the site easy to find from Nagarabashi bus stop.

Promoted ^_^

I was teaching a class on 'describing appearance' the other day, and getting students to describe me.

'Am I short, or tall?' I asked. (NB: I am a little under 5'2".)

They looked thoughtful. 'Middle height,' one said at last, and the others all agreed.

It was the first time I've been considered medium height. I suppose I am, here. I felt quite chuffed at my promotion. ^_^

Buses

I haven't taken buses as often as I've taken trains, but there are two main kinds: the kind where the bus has a flat fee, and you pay as you get on, and the kind where the fee increases the longer you ride.

From my experience, city buses in Kawasaki and Yokohama are the former, 'flat fee' type, but in more countryside places, the latter is more common. When I went to Nikko, Hakone, Izu and Gifu, I encountered the second type.

With the 'changing fare' buses, you usually take a ticket as you get on the bus. You may enter through the middle on some buses, and exit via the front. This ticket will have a number on it; if you look at the front of the bus, there'll be a list of numbers with fares below them. This shows the current fare for people who got on at your stop.

So, for example, if your ticket has a '3' on it, look on the board for '3' and it might have '200' (yen) under it. As you travel, this will likely increase, sometimes alarmingly. Hahaha. I've paid more than 1500 yen on some such buses.

I usually screw up when I go to pay and put my money in the wrong place; it seems like the bus driver doesn't really check the tickets at all. I think you're supposed to just chuck coins and ticket in the same, big slot at the top.

Another pitfall about bus travel is that minor bus stops often have no romaji (English characters) on them at all, though major bus stops, and the buses themselves, should.

Despite this, in general, buses in Japan are much easier to ride than in Australia. In my city, at least, there is no guidance whatsoever as to where you currently are, where you might stop next, and where you should get out. In Japan there's a constant narration, telling you what the next stop is; some buses also have screens telling you the next stop.

The bus I was on the other day also had a TV screen playing ads. Leonardo DiCaprio was advertising Bridgestone tires. I mean, that's cool and all, but I don't really see the natural connection between Leo and Bridgestone...?

Photos

Japanese people have a bit of a reputation for taking pictures. Is this justified? I think they do take more pictures than the average Westerner, though not more than the average Westerner living in Japan. There are a few photography trends I've noticed (some of which are not unique to Japanese people).

First, people are more likely to take photos with their phone than with a camera, unless they are actively sightseeing or at a special occasion.

Second, never offer to take a group picture, or you'll get an avalanche of 'oh, with my camera too, please?'s.

Third, people *do* do the peace sign a lot, especially youngish people. I'm afraid I have also caught this disease.

Fourth, Japan has a phenomenon called 'puri kura' (print club), where you go into a little photo booth with your friends and take pictures of yourself lightened to eerie, otherworldly paleness, then debase them with random little hearts, words, flowers and other bling. It's fun. ^_^ Most easily found in game centres (video arcades), but if you have no Japanese, good luck, because most of the machines have time limits, so by the time you realise the screen has told you to go around the side to edit your pictures, you'll have lost your chance, ha ha ha. (speaking from experience now)

Fifth, there is a rather nice culture here where if someone takes a picture of you at some event, or a picture of the two of you together, they will often print off a copy to give you. This is made easier by the 'instant photo print' machines, found particularly in electronics stores, but in other places too.

An odd aspect of this, however, is that people will print and give you even photos of yourself that are grotesquely unflattering, blurry or poorly shot. I really do appreciate the thought, but there are occasions where it would be kinder to keep those photos to yourself, ha ha ha.

Women Only

The other day I was riding to work in the women's-only car, and a man got in. He was running in at the last second, relieved to make it onto the train before the doors closed. It took him about half a second to realise: 'oh...' and his shoulders sagged.

He turned to face the door. There was a notice on the door explaining that this was a women's-only car during peak hours. The man made a point of reading this sign, following the words with his finger. The car was such a packed mass of women that he had no chance to make his way through to the next car without attracting more attention.

I felt bad for the poor guy. Next stop and he was out and across the platform like a hare.

A lot of trains have certain cars designated 'women's-only' during peak hours. They say this is to deal with unwanted pervy attention from gropers. I don't know that intentional groping is really the big issue; I think it's more just a matter of making both sexes feel more comfortable. Men don't have to deal with the awkward 'aaagh, where do I put my hands' and accusing looks, women don't have to travel to work pressed against the body of some random businessman. These trains do get very crowded.

Toilets

One of the exciting things about coming to Japan is the toilets.

Well, okay, there are an awful lot of squalid and smelly 'squat' toilets, which inspire considerably less joy. But Japan is also the home of the Washlet, an all-singing, all-dancing toilet with heated seat...

A standard model

Anyway, I'm blathering. Basically, toilets in Japan come in three kinds: squat toilets, normal toilets, and high-tech electronic toilets with control panels. The most basic of these latter come with some kind of bidet. The sophisticated ones have more buttons than the Apollo 11.

A fairly typical design might have four main buttons - 'stop', 'bum', 'bidet' and 'fake flushing sound', to mask the sound of your shame. There will also be buttons to increase the water pressure from 'weak' (='bracing') to 'strong' (='enema').

Useful toilet kanji:
止 = stop (you should identify this BEFORE pressing any other button)
弱 = weak
強 = strong

This is my own toilet!! In my own apartment! Isn't it exciting!!

Other key buttons should be illustrated with handy pictures. ^_^

Other toilet functions I've encountered include being able to select the position of the bidet nozzles, massage seats and other buttons I've never dared press. Fully utilising some of these toilets could become a kind of ongoing hobby.

One other funky function of many toilets is their 'no touch', 'eco' system where a sensor detects that you've gotten up, and flushes the toilet automatically. What this invariably means is the toilet will flush about three seconds before you're ready, forcing you to wait and then flush it again. It may even flush multiple times before you're ready. And it really gets going if you're just going into the cubicle to change your clothes. I don't quite understand how that makes the toilet 'eco'.

The alternative is that the sensor doesn't detect anything at all. The absence of a touch button robs you of any power to do anything but walk back and forth between door and toilet, sitting down and standing up again, hoping something you do will trigger it.