Amazing Japan II

The day started at around 8 a.m. in the morning i.e. 7 a.m. in Singapore. It has been freaking dinosaur years since I last woke up at this hour. Sometimes I really wonder if I will start to hate the teaching job some day, not because of the work and stress, but rather the routine of pulling myself out of bed early in the morning. I really hate waking up early!

So the boys, worried that Kim and I will oversleep, were very nice to come knocking on our door. There was even an announcement but because it was in Japanese, we weren’t sure if it was meant for us. All we knew was that it definitely woke us up!

So off we went to join the rest of the students to embark on our day trip to Kyoto. The day started really gloomy with rain splattering all over the streets of Osaka. People were really enthusiastic about the trip but the 4 of us, too weary from the long hours of travelling felt really chilled on the bus journey.

The tour guide spoke in Japanese but the other Japanese students were really nice to translate for us from time to time. The bus journey to Kyoto took around 1.5 hours and the 4 of us instantly became sleeping logs.!

The first stop was a tourist boat trip that resembled a white water rafting journey. The rain froze our ashes despite the 3 layers of clothing were being put on. There’s this really really funny Japanese student that never fails to make all of us laugh our asses off and kept us warm. Apparently, when you laugh, you feel warmer.

The 4 of us were split into two boats and Gabriel and I were lucky to be with this group of Japanese students who had been to Singapore in early November. Communication was made easier by the translator that the students have in their cell phones. Whenever we see a particular species of bird or plant, they will start to describe it to us and tell us the Japanese name of the bird or plant. Then they will discuss among themselves how to tell us in English. Fortunately, we had another professor from KG University who is quite proficient in English. However, his Japanese accent is quite strong so at certain times, it was hard to make out the words. I really appreciate his effort in guiding us along the way though.

The boat trip lasted around an hour and the boatmen commented that if we had been there a few days earlier, the scenery would have been much more perfect because by the time we visit, most of the leaves have already fallen. Out of nowhere, the professor and another student commented that I resemble a Japanese athletic, in fact a runner, Q-chan. I don’t remember her Japanese name despite them continuously chanting it and telling others.

“Do I really look like a Japanese?”

It is not the first time that I have heard comments about me being Japanese. When I was overseas in Europe, Australia, etc. people often spoke Japanese to me. Back then, I assumed it was due to the lack of recognition of the existence of us, the tiny red dot. Instead, the Japanese travel frequently and thus most people relate Asians to Japanese. Now that I am in Japan, even the Japanese themselves assume that I am Japanese!

The next stop was lunch and we went shopping for souvenirs! J Kyoto is a really beautiful place. If I had gotten my facts right, Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan! Correct me if I am wrong. J I love the old school buildings, traditional Japanese style! Because of the rain, this kind-hearted Japanese student actually sheltered me with his umbrella! I see the rain as a blessing in disguise because he himself is from Kyoto thus along the way, I was able to get a good reception and introduction about Kyoto. I bet he utilized every single English vocabulary that he knew while explaining to me about Kyoto. At certain times, I think I asked really intriguing questions and though he knew the answer, he wasn’t able to respond to my question because he couldn’t find the right word to put it across!

Over lunch, gab asked Yuki a question, “Do you like shopping?” and he answered, “Yes, I DO!” So we made fun of him by telling him that you only say that when you are agreeing to marry someone. It was something that a girl would give in response to a guy’s proposal. So we went on to asked them if girls in Japan propose to guys and how guys in Japan propose to girls? Apparently it wasn’t that difficult to answer the question and Japanese guys, according to them, ain’t romantic so flowers and a ring get the job done. No kneeling, no candles by the beach, hilltop restaurant proposals, etc. It was the first question that set the table rocking because Kim wanted to demonstrate how the question would be put forth in the Singapore context, as they didn’t understand our question. Ended up, the girl repeated whatever Kim said and asked Yuki if he will marry her? It was so hilarious! Ended up, the answer was more of a “NO, Japanese girls don’t do that.”

After lunch, it was time to board on the old school train. The train is operated for coal miners if I had gotten the explanation correctly and it is a technology that was imported from Germany. It was really noisy cause it operated in an underground tunnel but it is a really nice experience.

Our last stop was Isetan in Kyoto. J It is a wonderland for girls I assure you! The whole building is 10-storeys high and the escalators were sloped down in a single direction. Since Christmas’s round the corner, you expect to see a lot of ongoing Christmas sales but we hardly shopped. The YEN is getting stronger with each passing day thus everything was considered expensive! The basement can be voted to be the best place to hang out because there were so many Japanese snacks, sashimi, sakae, plum wine, etc. waiting for us! Ahhh! Went around trying the sakae and I have to tell Linky that the sakae in Japan is way better than the one we had at Raku, impromptu over lunch!

Dinner was the bomb as we were brought to a really high class Japanese restaurant! It was traditional Japanese dining where everyone were seated in an U-shape with their shoes taken off and kneeling on the ground! Apparently girls and guys are supposed to be seated in different postures with girls literally kneeling on their knees and guys free to sit cross-legged like how we do it during morning assemblies in primary or secondary school. However, Kim and I were totally unaware of it so we simply did it the guy’s style. Haha! Forgive us and it is not that we are uncultured or uncivilized but rather, it was awkward having to change our positions halfway during the meal!

I am not a big fan of red meat, especially beef, thus I only consume beef when circumstances require. Nonetheless, if I get to consume beef of that quality during normal meals, I don’t mind eating beef every single day! The beef simply melts in your mouth (oh not like M&M’s) and after you chew it, it makes you linger for more! One lesson I took home about the Japanese culture is that, THEY REALLY LOVE RICE! They hardly eat udon, ramen, soba as proper meals, rather these are more of side dishes to them! J Every meal comes with a bowl of rice! I bet I must have put on a few kilos from that 2 days, pampered to every single detail!

After dinner, it was time to head back to Osaka and part ways with some of the students who reside in Kyoto! However, the programme did not end. We were sent back to our hostel to shower and we were heading out for the night, for some drinks and karaoke together with the Korean students and some of the local students.

The Koreans can really drink! We had Japanese plum wine, sakae, Korean Soyu (can’t remember the name) and we did bottoms up in three different styles. The Koreans taught us their way of “Cheers” – it was like kallang wave but in drinking fashion. The first person bottoms up first then the person on the left will then continue and so on and so forth. But I still like the Singapore style best. We did the “YUM SENG” as loud as we could and the whole atmosphere in the drink house was lifted up, real high and rowdy! Finally, as a tribute to the Japanese students, we did the Japanese way last. By the completion of the 3 rounds of drinks (Neat or On the Rocks), some of the students were feeling drowsy, others flew high, talked at the top of the voice but it was really merry!! I love the feeling of how everyone who had just been acquainted instantaneously mingling together. The few drops of alcohol definitely helped.

It was already 1 a.m. by the time we left the beer house and we headed for karaoke. I thought I loved singing and am passionate about Karaoke but I was so wrong. The Koreans and Japanese totally beat Kel, Gab, and I flat down! Every single Korean song, which had some English words, had a few dance steps that accompanied the song and the 3 of us could only afford to laugh our asses off. The Japanese on the other hand were screaming at the top of their lungs like metallic rock bands! When we were made to sing, it was the ballads that were being brought on stage. The Japanese love Teresa Teng and so do the Koreans! So a modern jukebox like me was forced to turn time back and sing some oldies for them. I thought I sang really badly because my throat was hoarse from all the drinking!

Karaoke ended at around 3.30 a.m. and Kel and I decided not to sleep because we had flights to catch at 945 a.m. and 10 a.m. respectively. It was really good to have a companion because we could have breakfast at the airport and did some shopping before we fly off to our own respective destinations!

I wrap up the whole trip by specifically mentioning two people.

First is Sayuri, the graduate student, who arranged our accommodation and sent us to the airport on the 4^th morning. Japanese girls are really sweet and subservient! She speaks really softly, and pastes stickers on notes that she writes for us! Don’t you think that’s damn cute?! I can’t even recall when was the last time I used stickers, for goodness sake! She even brought us a few packets of Japanese snacks and everything was so beautifully wrapped up that you can’t even bear to remove the wrapper!

Next is Yuki, the Kyoto boy, who showed us around and made us laugh frantically over his expressions and jokes! He was very nice to shelter me all the way from the harbour to the restaurant and then from the restaurant to the coal miner’s train station. We had to cut through woods and forests and all the time, ¾ of the umbrella was over my head and half of his body was all wet.! I felt quite guilty about it and offered to hold the umbrella so that I could give him more shelter but he refused to let me hold it. On the other hand, gab shared an umbrella with a Japanese girl and the girl actually held the umbrella for him!!!!!!!!! The girl volunteered and gab actually allowed her to do that.!

Gab and Kel kept complaining about how Singaporeans girls like Kim and I are demanding and that we should learn from the Japanese girls. But we kept reiterating the point that it is the culture that sets the difference and of course, stereotypes. If Kim and I were to start pasting stickers, people would think that we are trying to act cute! They even criticized us for not putting enough powder and having our eye lashes all curling in the same direction! So we kept emphasizing on the point of “NATURAL BEAUTY”

So what about the Singaporean guys then? Letting a girl shelter you is an act of gentleman-ness? Yeah, Japanese guys may be more chauvinistic compared to Singaporean guys but at least they never let girls do the physical chores (from our two days’ of observations). So just give and take and don’t complain about us, Singaporean girls. Likewise, we won’t complain about you guys too in future!

----- Looking forward to being back in Japan ------

Amazing Japan

Finally have the time to sit down and blog about Japan.

The group of 4 of us met at the airport at 11 p.m on the night of 1st December, ready to plunge in an unknown world on our own. Although 3 out of 4 of us were already seasoned travellers, we kept discussing about the type of clothing to pack etc. As usual at the airport, everyone else's family was there with them except me. I am kinda used to it. In addition, though I was supposed to travel for 23 days, my luggage was unusually smaller than everyone else.!

After check-in, we proceeded to rehearse once for our presentation but perhaps it was too late into the night, none of us were processing whatever that we were mumbling about and it was pretty much of a disaster. Thus, we decided to rehearse once more the next morning.

SIA is definitely one of the best airlines around this world. The comfort, the service, plus the food! Nonetheless, I was quite disappointed with the in-flight entertainment and leg room. Perhaps the A380 that I took on the Sydney-Singapore leg really altered my expectations of SIA. The screen and leg room on the A380 was simply incredible!

Upon touching down in Osaka, we were immediately impressed by the Japanese way of life and efficiency. Every procedure was very well relayed to tourists even though you didn't understand Japanese. The queue at the immigration counter was also well-organised. Once we exit to the departure hall, the people at Kwansei Gakuin University was right there waiting for us. It was one of their administrative staff and a graduate student who picked us up. With their limited command of the English language, communication did break down occasionally but they were so meticulous and sincere in helping us arrange everything that we could find no reason to be petty over communication.

They showed us the brochure of the workshop and it was then that we realise how grand and important this workshop is to the whole university. So immediately after I boarded the shuttle bus to Osaka city, I took out my laptop and started memorising all the points. They reserved rooms for us in their sports center, which is a student's hostel. The Japanese are so cultured that I earnestly rate them as high-class Asians. Before you enter the lobby of the hostel, you have to change into the slippers, absolutely no shoes allowed. But we weren't aware of it so we wore our shoes right into the lobby and the graduate student hastily reminded us.!

Shortly after we placed our bags in the room, we were brought to the KG university by foot to meet the professor who invited us, for lunch. The professor carried no airs at all and I salute his politeness and humbleness. He could speak English well and he had been to Singapore thus we had a lot to converse. :)

After lunch, we headed straight to the lecture rooms for the workshop. One word - Distinguished. Our group was second in line so we had some time to have a good feel of how the presentation should be conducted and also, the expectations of us. Before we even start our presentation, all the Japanese students in the room started to remind us to go really slow because their English wasn't very bright and it would be difficult for them to keep up with our pace of presentation.

Kim started the ball rolling and I thought her speed was commendable. It could be attributed to her nervousness too cause her hands were trembling very badly as she held the pointer. Gabriel was next in line and his pace was definitely the slowest among the 4 of us. By the time I started my presentation, the number of puzzled faces in the room was already uncountable. As usual, I just can't go slow when I present. So I entered the presentation at half my usual speed but still 2 times faster than the 2 of them before me. Kim started to whisper, "Ginnelle, slow down!" and I started to pause after every 3-4 words. Kelvin was last to go and I am certain by the time he started to talk about the learning points in a crisis, no one was listening already, except the professors!

When we ended our presentation, one of the professors actually tried to save us from embarrassment by saying that this is the normal speed in Singapore. He said that because one of the professors before him mentioned that he thought our presentation was a bit too technical and too fast for the audience to follow. We received numerous positive comments from the professors though. When we went back to our seats, the group of Japanese students behind us (they actually visited Singapore in early Nov this year) commented that we spoke too fast and they weren't following. :(

The whole workshop lasted for around 4 hours before we headed for the reception at around 6.30 p.m. These Japanese students are simply fabulous! Everything was arranged fine right till the details. There were a lot of speeches being made but they were all in Japanese so we didn't understand. Instead, the 4 of us just gathered among ourselves and chit chat about how slack and tired we were.

They had malt beer, orange juice and wulong tea for us to do their Japanese way of "Gan Bei". They had to wait till everyone in the ballroom was done before the toasts. Many a times, Kelvin and I thought it was time to bottoms up and we nearly finished one whole glass of beer. We took home one important lesson from this trip though. If you think Singaporeans are Kiasu, and that is unique to our culture, then you are SOOOO WRONG!! It was a buffet that was being arranged and the Japanese students actually told us that once the bottoms up ceremony finishes, we have to "RUSH" to the food! And I thought Singaporeans was kiasu! We totally lost out to them. In fact, I felt so embarrassed that I didn't take much. I merely stood there and wait for them to get the food that was being shared among the members at the table. :)

We were extremely lucky because our group was voted as the best presentation for the English session. Extremely taken aback! When Kelvin and I went on stage to receive our scroll and prize, our faces were burning hot! Everyone gathered, applause loudly but we had no idea about what was going on at all because the announcement had been made in Japanese. We merely followed the hand signals, have the photos taken and immediately rush back to our tables. However, that was not the grand prize. The grand prize was won by a Japanese group in another presentation room. Yet, shortly after everyone had their stomach fills, it was time for pictures among the students. I likened us to wax figurines in Madam Tussuad's wax museum because people, known and unknown to us, started to pose and take pictures with us.!

By the time the reception ended, we were all worn out and dried of our energy. To add bitter icing to the cake, Kim and I were in formal skirts and heels, with no leggings and we had to walk back to the hostel which was 20 minutes away. It was definitely Stockholm deja vu for us. But we felt so happy about the whole event that the cold failed to put up the flames that were already burning in us. And once again, I had my fair share of the malt beer, whisky, and alcoholic drinks. :) lol!

I really love Japan and the reception by the KG university students. Awesome!

---- Next post on Day 2-----