Category: experiences

I went out for lunch the other day to a little snack bar and well, the way things happen, I needed to go to the toilet. And there I was faced – for the first time during my current stay in Japan – with a modernized, because ceramified, version of the ancient hole-in-the-ground.

This sight usually elicits a well trained string of responses on my part:

1. Assess urgency with which relief is needed.
2. Seek other, throne-style options.

3. If the answers to the above are NOW!! and None, then:

a. Curse evolution for relative intricacy of female plumbing as opposed to male one.
b. Curse father for not being able/willing to provide a y-chromosome.
c. Curse modern dress style involving pants and knickers.
d. Assemble aforementioned garments out of the way, face the hood and get down to business.
e. Hope to not lose balance during action.

So far my greatest relief has always occured when I could leave the cubicle again, unscathed, but I realize it is simply a question of getting used to it…

Japanese food is great – and I try to sample as many different types as possible, with a certain preference for sweet stuff of course. A good way to try various cheap types of food is at a matsuri or other gathering where street vendors sell their wares. There is a particular type of sweets that is essentially walnut sized pieces of pancake batter (which allegedly contains just a little bit of soysauce) fried in a mold and preferrably eaten as hot as possible (they become tough rather quickly).

When I first noticed them I was intrigued and decided to try them. The first question was easy: “Amai desuka? – This is sweet?” – “Hai, sou desu – Yes, it is.” Good, the sweeter the better, but my objection to anything containing anko led to the second question: “Okunai wa anko desuka? – Is there anko inside?” – “Iie, anko naindesu – No, no anko.” Sufficiently satisfied I bought a small bag for 300 YEN and found the taste very nice indeed, very simple, straightforward and not too sugary – almost instant happiness. I was even more happy when the vendor complimented me on speaking Japanese so well, a compliment I modestly refused with the expected standard answer any Japanese would give in such a situation: “Iie, benkyoshite imasu – Oh no, I’m just studying…”

Anyway, a few days later when I went over my vocabulary list again my happiness was greatly diminished. I found out that “okunai” does not really mean “inside” in the way I used it, but rather “indoors”. The meaning I had intended called for the word “naka” instead… Somehow the vendor’s compliment didn’t feel that great any longer.

Any Japanese house or apartment has a meter for electricity, gas, and water. Different to Europe, where you get the bill once a year and you pay a monthly amount based on your average monthly usage of the last year; here, the meters are read each month and you pay what you have actually used. Personally I prefer this system, it gives you more control I think and it is easier to find out whether there is a leak somewhere, for example.

Each company has numerous employees that go to each house and read the meters. Usually they just enter the genkan entrance area (Japanese homes are rarely locked during daytime) and loudly announce their presence. They then are allowed inside to read the respective meters, sometimes leave a note with the current reading, and are off again. A few days later the bill will arrive. I am not entirely sure how it is here, but often the bill does not even bear a name, only the address – which makes for one less thing to remember when moving in or out… When nobody is home, a note is left requesting somebody of the household to read the meter and phone the company. I don’t think, however, that anybody in this house has ever done so, I guess in such a case the company simply waits for the next opportunity.

More modern houses than ours may have their meters in more accessible spots outside, so that entering the house is not required anymore. I have seen meters nicely hidden behind little wooden doors or holes made into fences, just large enough for the numbers to be read. Still, not all of the outside meters are placed in a straightforward manner. Our neighbour’s, for example, is mounted on a spot that is about three meters above street level – there is no way to read the numbers from there. When I first realized this, I expected some very ingenious, possibly wireless, transfer of the meter reading going on, after all, this is a highly industrialized nation! Imagine my surprise when last week, I finally caught the woman doing the reading at our neighbour’s – with very small and rather untechnological – binoculars…

It’s typhoon season and we’re having bad weather again. It seems that the first 17 typhoons in South-East Asia have left us unscathed, but now that number 18 – Man-yi – has arrived, things are turning worse.

I woke up some time before six in the morning, when the rain was pattering heavily on the roofs and there was a strong wind howling, coming in through the little cracks in the window frame and rattling the doors. When I finally got to my computer about two hours later, there was a message from my landlady (sent at 6:15) asking if everything was alright. She said an extreme weather warning – something that happens only every five years or so – was issued around 5 in the morning, and some parts throughout Kyoto prefecture had even been evacuated. Neither Shinkansen nor Hankyu trains were running, and the rivers were swollen up to the bridges in some parts of the city. She said we should listen for city trucks that may come by and announce evacuations, and suggested to “follow the neighbour’s lead”. To give you an idea, here is a picture of Kyoto’s famous temple Kinkakuji (which stands in a pond) from their web cam today at 7 am:

It’s now 10 in the morning and things have calmed down. There is only a bit of drizzle, but there are strong gales here and there. The house and its inhabitants are unharmed. The forecast for tomorrow says it will be sunny and up to 29 degrees. Until the next typhoon…

Yesterday the builder came to fix the hole in my wall that has been there since I moved in here. As this is a traditional Japanese house, the walls are essentially made of mud on a wooden frame, held together by wood on the outside and some sort of plaster on the inside. The problem with my wall was that the plaster on the inside came loose at some point, and sometimes pieces of mud would fall out into my room, usually small grains and dust, but once a piece the size of a bottle cap fell out.

Anyway, so the builder finally came yesterday. Finally, because after several appointments three weeks ago which he mostly did not keep, he came here to fix some other things around the house and on the roof to disappear again when the rains started, he needed an extra appointment on Tuesday to look at my wall again as a reminder what to do. So, all in all it took him three weeks to fix everything around the house – I guess the whole work could have been finished in a day, two at the max, but he chose not to do anything in the afternoon. Apparently this is standard in Japan, not kept appointments included. This astonishes me as the country is known for its polite people and strong work ethic…

When he finally arrived yesterday at 9 am I was looking forward to it. My landlady had described in detail what was going to happen: “He’ll take off the plaster, fix the whole with some mud and then you’ll get new plaster on top of that.” The idea was that he would redo the whole panel and not just the damaged corner, which would probably take a while, so after having removed my futon and other assorted stuff littering my floor, I sat in the corner with my computer table and patiently waited – camera ready – for the things that were supposed to happen.

Well, it started off alright. After covering the tatami neatly with large pieces or sturdy cardboard and preparing his tools, he stepped on the small ladder and started to tear off the plaster. (I keep on saying plaster, but you have to imagine it more like a very heavy type of wallpaper, about 3-5 mm thick.) He didn’t do very much though, only the part that would come off easily. He took some measurements and disappeared for a short while, reappearing with – a piece of something resembling mdf the size of the panel he was supposed to fix. My surprise turned into outright shock when he used double sided tape to glue the mdf to the wall… At least he secured it with thin slats that he affixed to the wood already in place with small nails. He then “repaired” the panel next to it in the same fashion, took his things out, and, after vacuuming my room very thoroughly (another surprise), he left. The whole repair operation took only one hour.

I think the outcome is ugly, and I don’t even mean the color that doesn’t fit to the other walls. Yes, it’s doing the trick insofar as there will not be any more dust raining down on my bed, but the room has lost a lot of its charm. I would call the work shoddy – double sided tape of all things! – and when you knock on the new panel it sounds hollow, and it feels like plastic. I am certainly not happy about this, but … it’s not my house and I think I have to be grateful to still have a cheap roof over my head.

The weather has improved, the temperatures are back in the low thirties which I find more acceptable at this time of the year compared to the low to mid twenties it had at the beginning of the week.

The reason for the very heavy rain that lasted several days almost without breaks was Doraji, the 17th typhoon of this season in SE Asia. It travelled quite some distance, was supposed to hit Korea, but decided instead to go to Japan and make landfall at the southern tip of Shikoku early on Wednesday. Doraji pushed the heavy rain in front of it. When I went out on Wednesday, within five minutes my jeans were soaked up to the knees, not to speak of my sneakers…

With the rain came a severe drop in temperature of about 10 degrees. During the day it was okay, at least the humidity wasn’t too annoying. But it became really cold in the night. I have what is called a “hot carpet” in my room, that is a carpet with some electrical wiring inside that can be heated so you can sit on something warm. It lies underneath my futon, and I was very happy to use it in the night from Wednesday to Thursday. Another housemate of mine who is staying downstairs where it is usually cooler than in my room used her heavy sleeping bag, even during the evening. I am glad it’s over, but I have to say I do not look forward to winter time here – there’s no central heating in the house…

Take a look at the picture to the left.

What’s wrong with this building?

 

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it as such, it’s a perfectly fine building.

In fact, this is a hotel near Teramachi street in Kyoto.

 

Anyway, there is something about this building you’ll only find in Japan.

Take another, closer look.

 

And?

Found anything?

 

Do you notice the red triangles on some of the windows? Those stickers can be found on many windows of government or other public buildings, but also large apartment blocks or high buildings like this hotel sport these red triangles. They mark those windows that are emergency entrances. I am not sure if all of them have the same design, but the one I have checked (from the inside) opened in a special manner: by turning around a vertical axis in the centre of the window. Why this is superior to a normal sliding window or one that turns around hinges at the sides, I cannot fathom but I trust the Japanese expertise on this one. I suspect those special windows are meant for firefighters or other rescue workers to enter a building at the right floor in case of fire, maybe even after an earthquake.

I said above emergency entrance and no, this is no mistake. How do I know this? Because, firstly, it says so on the other side of the sticker (I took a picture of this too, but can’t find it at the moment – will upload as soon as I do) but also, secondly, I have seen those triangles on doors in the middle of smooth facades, where a safe exit is not possible, not if you forgot to bring your superman suit, that is.