This was quickly forgotton though, as I was introduced to another unique aspect of japanese culture: it's totally ok to drink in the morning no special event days. So here I am, riding a bus to Nagoya with my co-workers drinking at all of 7:45 am. By the time we arrived in Nagoya, several of my co-workers (and myself to a small extent) were already inebriated. Wow, I think that's a cultural thing I should bring back state-side.
The first place we went was the Kirin Beer Factory/Beer Park. We kinda got blindsided as outta nowhere Iijima's administrative staff showed up and we ended up touring with them.(this included the mayor.) All the teachers kinda had a 'shimatta' moment when they realized it was their bosses that were showing up, and here we were after several hours of drinking. A shame. It was also awkward having to talk to the mayor about things like how I like my bike and stuff. I'm also ready to be done w/ the 'meta-boru' jokes that keep getting cracked at my expense. In Japan, meta-boru is a deriviation of something along the lines of metabolic disorder or something that is used in reference to people who are overweight. Thankfully the alcohol helped take the edge off that and relegated me to just thinking 'you laugh short stuff, I could still put you through this window' instead of actually doing it.
Afterwards, we went to Meijimura, a meiji-era villiage (Meiji era was Japan's westernization period, 1868-1910). The place was very nice, including lots of western and japanese style architecture often side by side or even within the same building. It also included some buildings they had brought in from around the country. Some of the buildings reminded me of Old Main, since they are roughly comparable in age. But before we went to all of this, we had lunch. I sat with five of the male teachers, and apparently lunch was the peak time to try and down beer. Who knew. The meal itself was delicious, sukiyaki, aka meat and veggies cooked in sugar and some sauce. The meat was phenomenal.
Afterwards, lots of the teachers I was with were just going back to the bus to sleep until it was time to go. The rest of the teachers had left earlier to get some wandering in. Luckily, I was able to meet up with Oomori sensei and we made our way around the area. It was lots of fun, relaxing, enjoyable. In fact, we came across a large catholic church: the first I'd been in since coming to Japan. The stained glass was very beautiful and there was someone playing music in there as well, a nice touch. It was fitting too that this week the papacy is beaficating 187 martyrs who were killed in Japan over 300 years ago. Unfortunately we had to high-tail it outta there becuase we were running late. We hopped on one of the old meiji-era trollies, and ended up going the wrong way, which was funny, but we met up with two of our other teachers and the four of us continued on out. We briefly stopped and looked at a house built by Frank Lloyed Wright, and then headed on out.
The last stop was at an outlet mall. This was a nice way to end the day, but I didn't expect to be getting anything. I poked around a sketchers but didn't see anything. I then stopped in an Adidas store and saw that they had many shoes from 22cm - 30cm. I wear 30's or so. Well, I wasn't having any luck seeing any as I was poking around, so thinking they might be in the back, I asked an attendant to help me out. She said they didn't have any for the shoe I was looking at. I asked her if they had any at all in my size, she started looking around, and eventually found one that was a 32cm (14), and I tried it on. It was too big, but not terribly so, but I asked if we could keep looking. She found one more pair, but they were in a color I didn't want. She then went into the back and poked around for about 5 minutes, and came back with just one box. I opened it up, and they were perfect, blue shoes, exactly what I wanted. They were listed as 12's, but fit perfectly, and best of all, it was about 15$ cheaper than the ones I had been looking at earlier! I felt pretty stoked.
Afterwards I went through a few more stores, but didn't see anything in particular that I wanted. Unfortunately, there wasn't an electronics store, so I couldn't get my USB controller. I did end up finding a present for Pete though, and talked with the vendor in both English and Japanese about it. He seemed like a cool guy, and I hope pete likes it!
I had a delicious whip cream, caramel, and nut crepe to end the time at the outlet (after debating buying a pair of pants at a nice store, but I couldn't justify the 60$ tag, even if they were good pants.)
That pretty much rounded out my day, the ride home was uneventful and all.
Here are the pictures: Nagoya Day Trip
here are a few of the highlights:
1 comment:
Glad you found shoes in your size! And you really don't need pants, do you? I thought we sent about 80 pairs with you. :-) Sounds like a fun day all around. Will we be able to go to the FLW house when we're there? What a strange place to find one.
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