Konichiwa!

We are settling into Japan and the cold quite well, we think. It's great how efficient, clean, and vendor-free this country is! We're really enjoying it so far. It helps that we're staying with a friend of a friend who has been a great hostess (and has let us sleep in her super-comfy bed). Rona grew up in Winnipeg but has lived in Japan on and off for the past 5 years or so. She knows her stuff. She didn't even hesitate when I asked her if she knew where I could buy yarn!

On our first day we took a stroll through some shops in Osaka. We went to this one department store called "Loft". It was quite an experience. There was a greeter at the door, but this was no ordinary Walmart greeter, oh no. This is Japan. The woman was wearing a rabbit head and dancing away. And it wasn't a cute, cartoony rabbit head either. It was very realistic and disturbing.

We gawked at the crazy stuff on the shelves and roared at the outrageous prices. $30 (CAD) for a water bottle! It had cute cats on it and, as Rona pointed out, you got a whole lot of cutueness for $30. But still!! We found cool patterned sheets, but they won't fit North American size beds
:( Lots of interesting kitchen utensils in odd animal shapes and stuff like that.

After Loft, we walked around outside to get to a place to eat and saw a girl at an arcade playing DDR Super Nova! DDR, for those of you who don't know, is Dance Dance Revolution. It's an arcade game that tells you dance moves and you have to do your best to follow them. It's HUGE here and this particular one was on the street so that tons of people could watch. The girl was good, but I have to say that she lacked a bit of passion. It was still fun to watch though.

Next came our first non-sushi Japanese food experience. We weren't even sure if they ate anything else in Japan ;) We ate okonomi-yaki. What is that, you ask? Well, let me tell you. They have a gril in the middle of the table and they bring a bowl full of cabbage and meat, with a raw egg cracked on top. The nice waitress lady mixes the whole thing together and turns it out onto the grill, making a pancake-type blob. (Geez, my English is so great!) They cook it up for you, add some mayo on top and some BBQ-type sauce, and away you go. It was really good--both Joel and I were pleasantly surprised.

Yesterday we attempted to go to the Human Rights Museum. It took us a while to figure out how to buy a ticket. All of the machines are Japanese only and there are no people that you can actually buy tickets from. Luckily, a white girl walked up jsut as we were getting ready to spy on people buying tickets and she helped us out. We got on our train and I read up on what was in the museum we were going to visit. And then I read that it's closed on Mondays. oops. We walked around the neighbourhood anyway and bought a beer from a vending machine. That was our excitement.

Tomorrow we're off to Hiroshima for a few days. It'll be our first ride on the bullet trains and we're pumped. The same journey we're taking tomorrow would take us probably 10+ hours in China and it will take us less than 2 hours here. Hooray for development!!

m&j