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As recollected May 1992, months after the fact
On January 2nd, we all headed over to the Osaka Ring of Fire Aquarium. This is Osaka's big tourist attraction (other than the castle). I didn't really get much out of this because it was so crowded. You couldn't really see much, and there were always people shoving past you, around you.
It was quite an impressive building. They had several multi-story tanks, with this path that ramped around the tanks like a dervish dancer. But I really couldn't see much of anything. I figured I'd be coming back with Hans, Dave, and Brendan, when hopefully it would be less crowded.
Basically, this trip was a total loss. The crowd was torture. We got rather tired out dealing with it. Afterwards, we wandered around looking for someplace to eat. We were standing in front of a sushi shop, trying to figure out if we wanted to eat there. The proprietor came out, reached a net into a tank we hadn't noticed before and pulled out a fish. Which managed to struggle in such a way as to give me a good splash. "Well, now we know the fish is fresh." We ended up eating there.
January 3rd, we were all set to head on down to Nachi. Hiroko decided that she wasn't going with. Maybe she wasn't looking forward to spending a couple of days with a bunch of people who were all going to be speaking English. I don't know. Anyhow, things didn't exactly get off to a quick start.
Jimmy and I first took the train to Osaka train station. We then wandered around trying to find a place that would cash some traveller's checks, but all the banks were closed. We then went into the Hankyu hotel, but they wouldn't cash our checks if we weren't guests. They directed us to the Hankyu department store, where they would cash checks. So I was able to cash in $300 into yen. Enough for train tickets there and back again. The train trip was a long one. I was glad I had my walkman. As I listened to the dulcet tones of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I was reminded that this trip was keeping me from seeing their New Year's show. Sigh.
This train ride was sort of an interlude. It was really strange. There were these long stretches where it was totally dark outside (it turned nighttime as we headed south along the Kinki peninsula). No road lights, no city lights, no nothing. You just could sense that we were getting out into the country.
Jimmy and I ate sushi bento and other snacks. Looked out the windows. Jimmy didn't have a walkman, but I was able to share my headphones... Have I made my point? This was a long train ride. Hans isn't kidding about how far away he is from civilization (Osaka).
The train pulled into Shingu, the nearest big train station to Nachi (actually, the train had stopped in Nachi, but Hans, Dave, and Brendan had spent the evening in Shingu, so we were meeting them there) and met them. There wasn't going to be a train going back to Nachi for another couple of whiles, so we all headed over to the only place that was open. Lotteria. This is a Japanese fast food outlet. I don't really know that much about what they served. The only thing I noticed on the menu was milkshake, and they weren't serving any that late. Sigh.
Other people maybe ordered things. I sat back and listened to the conversation, which was quickly taken over by Jimmy and Hans discussing teaching anecdotes and experiences. Hans had had mostly bad ones. Jimmy had found out that it wasn't that hard to find tutoring work in Tokyo, but he hadn't had a Visa. Also, though it's really easy to find part-time work, full-time is apparently tougher. So you might find yourself holding down 4 part-time teaching jobs, each of which pays very well. But when you factor in all the time you spend on trains commuting from job to job, suddenly you're not doing that well anymore. So you maybe have to juggle things, accepting a less well-paying job that's at a good time. Complicated stuff. And it really eases your mind if you have a working visa. But though things might be confident, this gave Hans the confidence he needed- he could make it in Tokyo if Nachi became overpoweringly awful.
Anyhow, the conversation turned this way and that. Plans emerged. Tomorrow early in the morning we would go to see the big local attraction: Nachi-taki (Nachi waterfall). Then Hans, Dave, Brendan, and I would head up to Kyoto. Jimmy would stay in the area, and would in fact stay at Hans' place for a night. The previous night, Jimmy had called up some youth hostels. Which had seemed quite willing to let him reserve a room. Until they found out that his name was Jimmy. They didn't say the reason, but for some reason three hostels turned full as soon as they heard his name. Sigh. No racism here.
Anyhow, we wandered around in this music CD & movie VHS & LD rental store for a while. I checked out the anime titles, but didn't write any down. Oh well. Eventually, we got back to the train station and took the train to Nachi. Got back to Hans', where I quickly dumped all of my dirty laundry into Hans' washing machine. Washing machines are different in Japan. They don't have tops. There's actually two bins. The big one on the left is the agitator- the thing that actually does the washing. The bin on the right is where the spin cycle happens. When your clothes have been cleaned, you move them from bin to bin for spinning. Then you hang them up on the line. Hans has a space heater that he used in his room on winter nights (though we were already finding out that Nachi was really very warm compared to Tokyo in the winter), which had a special fan that he wasn't allergic to (I don't understand this part of Hans' allergies, but I don't have to understand them to respect them.) but the nice thing about having a heater was that clothes could drip-dry overnight.
Hans' place was actually very spacious compared to the apartment where Jimmy and I had spent the last few nights. Actually, Hans' place was okay by Western standards. You really noticed it in the kitchen. I mean, back in Sooji, this one bike parked in the kitchen had basically filled up most of the floorspace. When Jimmy, Hiroko, and I had stood in the kitchen, none of us could really move around because of the bike. For this reason, Hiroko had stayed by the sink and stove, with me behind her (so I could reach over her and get at the high cabinets) and Jimmy was in charge of getting things out of the fridge. (Okay, so eventually we were helping out a little, but not much.) Hans' kitchen was spacious. He had a breakfast nook. And room for two bikes to park in this clear area in the middle, and there still would have been room for people to walk around.
Then I went into the bathroom, which smelled kind of funny.