Let’s talk about trains. Now, before coming to Japan (the first time), my only experiences with trains were the crappy Amtrak to Chicago and of course my main boy Thomas (who has one of the best themes to dance to). Now I could actually talk about how Thomas is even more popular here than he was in America, or about the real life Thomas train that they had last year (though I got to meet him in Detroit before I left), but that’s a subject for another time. Now, in most of America, you just get around everywhere by car. If you’re in a city or fancy college, sometimes you have a bus, but trains are pretty rare outside of like 5 major cities. Here, almost everything is by train or bike. If you live way out in the countryside, you’ll get a car, but most people stick to those two. Because Japan is relatively small (New Zealand or California sized), Amazon Prime can even do 1 day shipping for free. They just ship it by train, then the delivery bike guy brings it to you. That’s right, delivery bike. I’ve yet to see any kind of delivery truck around here. Again, that’s another subject for another time I’m bored at work (so probably a Monday). There’s two main types of trains: the normal ones, and the shinkansen (bullet train). Bullet trains mostly just go between major cities, and cost a lot, but they’ll get you there faster than anything else. The normal trains have a few different options, too. There’s a fancy one where you have to reserve a seat for an extra $10-15, but it’s a lot faster, or you take one of the slower ones and save money. Being a fan of both not waiting and wasting money, I usually opt for the former if the place is more than an hour away. It basically depends on the ratio of money to time save. Going to Nagoya would only save 10-15 minutes, so it’s not worth it. However, I can get to Osaka or Kyoto almost an hour faster at times, so I get the fancy one (when alone or with others who hate money). The shinkansen is mostly just for trips to Tokyo, which aren’t very common for me. I’d take the train to school, but there’s no stops close enough, so I’m stuck with the bus. The other good thing about Japanese trains is that they’re almost never late, to the point that if they’re more than 5 minutes late, they’ll hand out slips that you can give your teacher/boss as a valid excuse for being late. This makes it very easy to plan exact times to get there or to make transfers (or in my case, to figure out how late I can sleep in and still be on time).
Saturday was shopping in Osaka day. A few of the girls were planning on taking the 9:45 (1.5hr) train there and shop the whole day, with a few people going slightly later. Not being a huge fan of shopping (especially with girls), and being a huge fan of sleeping, I decided to wait until I woke up, whenever that was. Turns out, it was a few times. My usual 6am alarm was first (I forgot to turn it off), followed by a random wake up a little before 9. As I was falling asleep, the doorbell rang. I thought this might be a package or something (Idk why I thought they’d come that early), so I jumped out of bed (by which I mean off the floor (I’m still on a Japanese futon aka thick blankets) and went to look out the peephole. It was my new archenemy, Mr. Jehovah’s Witness. I had previously encountered Mr. Witness the weekend before, when I opened my door and saw his eyes bulge out of his head at the surprise of a white person. I didn’t know what he wanted at first, but I knew I didn’t care. I told him I don’t really speak Japanese, at which point he tried going on his iPad at which point I saw the Watchtower and understood that I needed to get rid of him. He tried scrolling down and clicking on the English one, but a message popped up and said that he needed WiFi to download it. Rather than seeing this as a message from God that he wasn’t supposed to bother me, he told me he’d be back later. Now, back to later: Since I had just been sleeping (or more accurately, since I was in my apartment), I was just in my boxers. I considered opening the door like that just to mess with him, but instead stuck to my usual tactic of Anne Franking (that means keeping real quiet till the bad guys leave). If he keeps coming, I’m just going to have to admit that I already worship Odin and not to come back or he’ll be struck down by the hammer of Thor (which is Mjolnir for those not brushed up on their Norse/Marvel mythology). Anyway, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep, so I just got dressed and went to get the 10:10 (2hr, cheaper) train. We got to Osaka a little after noon, went to the mall and got something to eat. After lunch, as two of us were going to meet everyone else, we encountered a random fashion show on one of the floor. Basically they had turned one of the halls into a runway, and there was a huge group of people gathered around taking pictures. One by one, the models walked down and did their little turn on the catwalk (on the catwalk, on the catwalk yeah. He did his little turn on the catwalk). After escaping, we all met up, then the guys and girls split up to do their own thing. Upstairs in one of the malls was Joypolis, a strange mixture of arcade and theme park run by Sega. On one floor, half of it was a game center, and half was a giant purikura area. The purikura area had booths, prop areas, and I think even clothes to dress up in. It was so fancy that guys weren’t even allowed to enter unless it was with a girl. There was also an area that looked like a haunted house featuring Sadako (The Ring), another haunted area called the Room of the Living Doll, and a water ride (a la Splash mountain). We were on the 9th floor, so I have no idea where the water ride even went.
The guys decided to do the Room of the Living Doll “ride.” After waiting in line, we walked in where we received the backstory (in Japanese) of some doll that was probably neglected and came back for its owner or something (my comprehension still isn’t great). Then we walked into the next room (joined by two jr. high girls) where we sat at a wooden table next to a kind of doll hanging on the wall (scary face, arms out, etc). There were headphones for each of us. We put them on as the lady continued to walk slowly around the room and say something scary. Then the lady disappeared because she was a ghost the whole time left and the lights all went out. The headphones then made it sound like a little girl was walking behind us. I could make out a decent amount of what she was saying, but it was obvious either way. The girl (maybe it was the doll?) declared she didn’t like how the woman there was looking at her, so she kindly removed her eyes (accompanied by a gross sound and a “thud” as the table shook a little). The table and floor shook a little more as the girl walked around. Occasionally the voice would suddenly seem to be coming from right next to our ear as the girl threatened us. Then she decided she didn’t like the woman crying, so she sliced her open (accompanied by an air cannon from under the table). This was the part where the dude next to me lost it (possibly more so than the two girls across from me). I don’t get scared from haunted houses. I just enjoy others’ reactions to them, and so I was laughing. The final scare involved the chairs we were sitting on dropping about an inch with some loud noise. The whole thing was admittedly pretty spooky, but not quite enough to be scary. Then it was dude shopping time. However, every store in the mall we were at was way too expensive, so eventually we just gave up and went to find the girls. Outside the mall, there were some people holding signs that said “let’s speak English,” so we thought, “why not.” We talked to them for a bit and learned it was for some church thing where they met every Sunday for two hours and practiced English. It seemed interesting, but we lived 2 hours away, so it wasn’t gonna happen. Then one of the guys started getting our Facebook info. I already have to avoid Mr. Jehovah, I don’t need another solicitor. We sent the friend requests (notice I didn’t say became friends), then excused ourselves and later did our best not to see them again (or be seen).
Finally we met the girls, who told us that in the other mall there was cheaper stuff for the guys, so we shopped some more. Japanese men are known for being fashionable, however it’s usually the same fashion, so most of the stores had the same stuff. Plain T-shirt with a plaid button up shirt over it (but not buttoned), tight pants, and slip on shoes with socks that make it look like you’re not wearing socks. Occasionally they’ll also wear a scarf (in that stupid preppy way, not the winter way). While I am “Japanese-sized,” I am unable to buy pants here due to my advanced bootyliciocity (that’s Black Science Man-talk for ‘donk (if you don’t know who BSM actually is, Google it)), so all that leaves is shirts, which I don’t need. HOWEVER, it was in a small store at Hep 5 (the name of the mall and also an advanced venereal disease) where I found a treasure unlike any seen before. A t-shirt so magnificent that it has been known to bring men to their knees, weeping. Behold, and know that God has smiled upon you this day! For it is by His magnanimous grace that we are deemed worthy to witness such beauty. I knew that I mustn’t be greedy, and that if I touched anything but the shirt, the mall would begin to melt and collapse around me, leaving me to flee on a magic carpet, weaving through all the clothes until I reached the entrance where an old man would claim to help me if I handed over the shirt, but then really try to stab me and take the shirt for himself, so I was done shopping. Once the euphoric joy of purchasing said shirt (as if one could put a price on such a treasure) had settled down to mere elation, a few of us went to a little mochi restaurant where we were served an order of mochi with macha (green tea), anko (red bean paste), and some kind of molasses to dip it in. We also had a kind of pestle where we inserted kinoko nuts and spun it around to grind it into a small powder that we could snort dip the mochi in. It was like a sweet, peanut buttery powder. A different few of us then went to get dinner before heading back on the fancy train.
Will my life ever be the same after getting that tshirt? Will any of your lives ever be the same now that you know of it’s beauty? Was that shirt made of the cloth used to wrap the holy grail? How long will I continue to praise a tshirt? Find out next time on the Gaijin Chronicles! Dah dahh dadahhh da dahh duuhhh.