Now......before I describe our Japanese adventure, take a look at these delicious morsels! On Saturday we went into downtown Seoul for the first time proper, and ended up drinking in the notorious "American Ghetto" Itaewon for most of the day and night. Nearby, some locals were selling some pig snouts. They assured me they were very tasty and attempted to goad me into a little nibble, and I promise you all, I will accept this dubious offer next time! Actually, I will start trying more disgusting food for your amusement from this day forth, as the memory of the squid bile has become quite distant. Onwards then, to Japan, as Itaewon is a different story, and a different post, coming to you soon.......
Let me cut to the chase, Osaka is spectacular. Therefore, as our only reference point thus far, Japan itself seems utterly amazing. If it weren't for the infamously high cost of everything, which we got to witness first hand, we would have been having doubts about choosing Korea over Japan. However, this was also before we'd actually been into downtown Seoul, so we couldn't really compare the two (obviously, we will soon find that Seoul is very cool as well).
First of all, our adventure began by taking four different modes of transport, taxi, bus, plane, and train. This sounds quite rigourous, but we started our journey at 6am and arrived in Osaka by at least 12pm, so it wasn't too much of a strain. Not only were all of these travel costs and the hotel room paid for, but our director also handed us a wad of 250,000W the day before we left, for all our meals and any other expenses! Which inevitably included some Japanese beer and disgusting food!
Speaking of which, I will keep with tradition and show you the "lovely" plane food. Clearly, on a flight from Korea to Japan, any hope of a "Western" option was ridiculous! So, clockwise from top left; Japanese Sobu noodle (again), why does this get served? Cold sticky bland noodles that taste of cardboard and feel like worms in in yer gob. Some dubious fish with the worlds ugliest and weirdest fungus. And, Hurrah!, a bit of broccoli and a cherry tomato! Turns out it was tuna and possibly the best thing on the plate. Ah it was only a matter of time before sushi got put in front of us. I've never been a fan, but to be fair I'd only ever tried Tesco's own brand Sushi, and we are now visiting the "home" of the dish. And what a surprise, it was rather nice, even the raw fish had a nice taste to it! And lastly, lord only knows, but it seemed like some harmless, albeit bland and sticky rice, ruined by the fluorescent orange fish eggs on top and unidentified matter throughout, which tasted like licking a jellyfish.
On the plane, there were around 10 other people doing the same "Visa Run", but we were a little bit antisocial on the way there, for fear of getting saddled with some annoying or boring bastard and feeling obliged to talk to him for the duration of the trip. Little did we know, despite our precautions, we were about to meet The Worlds Most Annoying Person (If i knew how to do a trademark sign here, believe me I would), and feel like slitting our wrists in the bathtub. Druff, if you are reading, I sympathise with you in losing your title, but you had a good innings! It was very interesting to meet a guy called Jay, however, who used to live in New Orleans. His home and everything he owned had been wiped out in the storms and flooding, and provided him with the impetus to teach in Korea. Crazy stuff!
The first thing I noticed about Japan, was on the train from Kansai airport to Namba Station in the downtown area. There are houses! I don't think I'd seen a house in Korea since arriving, as they tend to build upwards in the form of infinite rows of apartment buildings. Furthermore, all of these houses just looked so "Japanese" in style, with brightly coloured upturned tiled roofs. I remember thinking on the train, I'm sure the plural of roof should be rooves, it sounds much better. Same goes for hoof. What about "pooves"? I think that sounds better for describing multiple homosexual people. I wonder what the collective noun would be? A "gaggle" of geese. A "prance" of pooves perhaps? Anyway, from this train of thought you can tell I was giddily tired from the travelling by that point.
Getting the Visa itself was a bit of a circus, so a disparate group of us gamely tried to make sense of the proceedings and rally through it. It took a while in the end, and luckily we got through it by making up certain details which our boss hadn't provided us. This process gave us the opportunity to meet our fellow travellers and alleged teachers. As well as Jay, there was a very funny American guy called Charlie (claims a "Merkan" is a genital wig for pubeless people), and a mixture of very sound Canadians and Americans. We all exchanged emails, and hopefully will meet up in Seoul. Our party also included the aforementioned bell-end, who goes by the name Baron Garcia. Christ on a bike. Like a hispanic bavarian nobleman or something. "Barren" of all wit and personality. Oh lucky us, we figured out he was the only other one staying at our hotel, and set off to find it with him. In short, we all got lost, and we had to spend an hour with him hyperactively commentating on every single detail of everything, stating the bloody obvious, and generally just not shutting up. Then, it was as if God, sensing our frustration, decided to twist the knife a little bit more. Lo and behold, out of 15 floors, he was on the same floor, in the same corridor as us. There's no possible way to explain just how irritating he was, even the purple corduroy shirt buttoned right up to the top gives me the chills now when I think about it! The original plan was for everyone to meet back at the consulate to go out drinking at 5pm, but, with that meaning being in good old Garcia's company again we made other plans! And then......laugh? I almost cried......we try to sneak out the hotel early so when he calls on us we'd have left, and we bump into him in the corridor. I swear the cretin had his ear to the door! Anyway, after a combination of shockingly shit excuses we finally got read of our dear friend Garcia.
Before describing Osaka, and bombarding you with some photos, let's have a brief look at Japanese TV, which we had a quick look at before heading out. In a fantastic cliche, I turned the television on and was faced with thongs, sweat, breasts, and grappling. No, I hadn't paid for any hotel "special" channels, it was some championship Sumo wrestling. Those fat bastards really throw each other about, and I felt thin for a full 2 minutes. Next up we had some televisual genius in the form of Japanese Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, a much improved take on the entertainment vacuum we know and hate (but all probably secretly watch). With fast editing, rapid close-ups, pounding tension, and screaming Japanese folks, you have TV Gold, topped off by a host who looks like he would drown your kitten if you pissed him off. It was quite entertaining, and I bet it would be funny after several Kirin's.
After avoiding Garcia, we had a look around Osaka. We were very lucky to be right in the heart of the main shopping and entertainment district, so we could get quite a feel for the place despite our very short stay. I've described places as maze-like in the past, but this place was just insane! The area we explored is a network of extremely narrow lanes, flanked on each side by endless and varied restaurants, bars and boutiques. These lanes are barely wide enough for a regular size car to drive down, so why Japanese taxis are so stupidly massive is anyones guess. A cruel joke on the pedestrians I presume, as it's easy to imagine more than a few wing mirrors swatting down an unsuspecting tourist. Although there is even more liklihood of your heels being smashed by the front wheel of a bike, as EVERYONE in Japan seems to cycle everywhere! Seriously, even on the streets with pavements, cyclists absolutely bomb down the path, and it would appear that pedestrians are actually expected to yield to these maniacs! Wherever you looked, there were rows of literally hundreds of parked bicycles. Amusingly, most of them are the most unfashionable looking bikes you'll ever see, with men in posh suits trundling along on primitive bikes that could almost be Penny Farthing's!
The main thing about this area, was that it was just so Japanese. The neon lights are incredible and everything I hoped Japan would be. The wider pedestrian shopping streets are a sensory overload of colours and sounds, and it leaves your jaw literally gaping. I've never seen such lively streets, and lively people for that matter. Everywhere you look there are mechanical crabs or dragons, massive LCD screens sometimes 10 stories high, numerous Pachinko amusement arcades, and anything else you care to imagine. Unfortunately, part of our exploration also involved finding some palatable food, which proved to be actually even harder than in Korea, and finding Lynne something vegetarian was apparently hopeless! This is partly due to us refusing to be gaylords and taking easy street straight to McDs or KFC etc. Below is a pretty common dish in both Japan and Korea. You may think it's a plate of raw meat, and you'd be absolutely right! A chunk of corn and some old nettle fails to disguise that it is in fact just a big bastard bowl of flesh, fantastic!
Eventually we eat at a restaurant on the 15th floor of our hotel, even though I have dread visions of Garcia being up there. Lynne looks safe with the "Fried rice with vegetables", until, and not for the first time, it arrives with prawns and ham all the way through it. I, on the other hand, having been brainwashed by one to many mechanical crabs on the street, opt for a bizarre crab meat and egg concoction. I was quite looking forward to crab, as I hadn't tried it since the school trip to Anstruther in 1985, and that experience was tarnished by the fact I had just vomited up a sandy whelk in the toilets. As it turns out, it tasted of nothing, but I think the food in general was just shite, so I'm not giving up on crab quite yet. And, as with everything in Japan, a feckin rip-off compared to the big K. It was getting dark so I took a picture of Osaka as the first few lights were starting to blink. Poor picture though, my phone sucks. But take note of the thing on the right, it's a huge ride, similar to a big wheel, and though the photo distorts things, it was actually higher than where we were sitting, the 15th floor. So really massive!
After another disappointing meal, which we are used to by now, we carried on exploring. One particular shop had rows of cramped plastic boxes housing little puppies. I guess to all of us it would be considered pretty inhumane, and the dogs did indeed look miserable. Many of them were asleep, and whether that was from a general contentedness with their lives and homes, or from malnutrition and lack of oxygen, I'll never know. But check out the little dog below, if he didn't cost the equivalent of a small mortgage I might've rescued him. On that note, stay tuned for a trip to Yeungdeungpo Market sometime in the future. This is where the dog market for the notorious soup is held, and we have it on good authority that cartloads of dogs can be seen with smoke still curling out of their nostrils. Should be slightly harrowing, but it's part of the culture, so worth checking out. Enough morbidity though!
To shift the tone away from dead dog soup, here is a comical statue doing a wee, which Lynne is pretending to drink! Oh aren't we mature!
When darkness falls and the lights come on, Osaka simply bursts into life. I'll just post some pictures here to let you see what it's like......
This is the street sign for the street our hotel was on, possibly overkill but a lot cooler than your average street sign I'm sure you'll agree!
Here's a photo from the foot of that big wheel buddha type thing. It would have been cool to check it out, but probably would've cost about £500 so we didn't!
In the end we went to one bar, and managed to be charged around £6 each for a pint of lager. Considering we pay no more than £1.50 back in Ilsan, this was further proof that we had made the right decision overall. However the sour taste left from this outrage was wiped away as we found some Japanese robes back at the hotel. I immediately felt like Ralph Macchio, and am probably the same age as he was when he did Karate Kid, and treated Lynne to some crane kicks and Kata. I bet she'd never wanted me more than in that moment.
This was somebodies garden close to the hotel. It was very authentic looking, and we were forced to trespass and take a picture.
Another building had these bizarre statues outside. There may be a picture of me picking a huge rock nostril, but I chose not to show it for fear it would ruin the dignified tone I have sustained throughout this post.
As with most posts, I'm getting tired now, as I'm sure you are too! The next day we met everyone back at the embassy to pick up the Visas, and to hear how the night out had been for the others. I should point out, that we got up early in order to escape the hotel minus Garcia, only for us to bump into him randomly in the middle of a huge crowded city like Osaka. How unfair is that!? We then had to have lunch with the berk, and suffer more of his interesting facts and anecdotes. When we got to the embassy, it was clear there had been some kind of "incident" the night before, basically regarding everyone hating Garcia and ordering him home. This helped us, as we had been slightly worried about spinning our shit excuses for everyone else, but before we could even speak they had already deduced we had actually tried to ditch Garcia. Sort of feel bad for him a bit, but not much. It was now that we realised that you can openly booze anywhere, anytime in Japan, and, as it turns out, in Korea too! We never even knew! I did think it strange Charlie, still drunk and hilarious from the previous night, was standing in the embassy necking a bottle in a plastic bag!
Anyway, with our Visas now sorted, we are no longer working illegally, which is less of a worry! Feeling peckish on the way to the train bound for the airport, I curiously inspect one of the many streetside vendors stalls. I must be feeling brave, cos it's impossible to tell what any of these delights are, but the thing I motion towards looks like hot chicken breast on a stick. It turns out to be coold and rubbery, and what a surprise, smells fishy. Turns out to be a kind of raw fish lollipop. Give me a Callipo or a Strawberry Mivvi any day. To my credit, I managed to eat about a third of it, and haven't seen any of it since, so no repeat of the squid incident. With the new public boozing information fresh in our heads, we all buy beers in the airport and have a few in the departure lounge. I think by this point our new friend Charlie was absolutely smashed, and was soon to provide me with the funniest moment in ages. It felt very wrong though, to walk through the gate, handing over the boarding pass, while cradling an open can of Asahi! Can you do that everywhere? I can't remember! And then you get free booze on the plane, with 30 channels of TV in the screen of the headrest in front. Asia is brilliant.
As we reach altitude and I return from draining my Asahi I spotted Charlie slumped in his chair and went across to talk to him. With their public respectfulness, and general quietness, a flight of 99% asian passengers is a relatively quiet affair. Before I even open my mouth, this comedian absolutely screams "UP YOUR AAAAAASSS", and with him slouched, and me standing in the aisle, every pair of eyes turns to me and it was a truly awkward moment, but hilarious nonetheless. The silence was deafening, men scowled, women shifted uneasily in their seats, and I stood there dumbfounded. Genius. Should be an entertaining guy to meet up with in Seoul for some debauchery.
Well, it's bedtime for me. We penetrated Seoul at the weekend, and as well as Itaewon, we went up Nam-san mountain in the centre of Seoul, so there will be pics of that very soon. Also, stay tuned for the Art Attack post coming soon with the best/worst/downright disturbing drawings and colouring-in efforts.
I'll leave you with a quick school report. Clockwise from bottom left are Dick, Meric, Fat Jimmy, Evil Alex having a bit of a square go. Every wednesday they wear these tracksuits because they have a P.E. class. Not, as some Craigie High veterans might think, because they live in Douglas circa 1994 and would like to express their Toddy affiliation through gang colours and clothing brands. When these scraps break out, I let them run for as long as things are tipped in my favourite kids favour, in this case, the only cool one is Dick. If Dick goes down then it's nipple twisters for the others. It's only fair I reckon.
Next up, we have the fantastically named Grace1, and her depiction of Peter Pan's Tinkerbell. Grace1 is not simply a clone of Grace, but arose from the Korean teachers running out of female English names.
