November 11 - Depends on where you are

November 11 is a somber day. It's a day that should be blustery, rainy, and cold. It certainly was that in Japan. However, the mood was distinctly different.

In Canada, we know the span of time after Halloween until November 11 is a time to get your poppy, reflect on wars, reflect on the people that have sacrificed themselves for the sake of not only our country, but the free world. In that sense, no one is thinking about Christmas (I hope) until at least after November 11. 

I think it's the same in countries like the U.K., France, New Zealand, and Australia. However, in other countries, November 11 has no meaning, or if you're in Asia, it has quite a different meaning...

In Asia, or at least China, Korea, and Japan, November 11 means "singles' day" or "pocky day." The reason is because of how the date looks when written out- 11/11. People think the ones represent pocky, a popular stick bread snack from Japan. On this day, pocky is offered on special or emphasized and people buy them for their friends. In Korea, on pocky day, it has become tradition to buy your significant other pocky. If you don't, you might end up single. 

The other meaning of November 11 is singles' day. Of course this is because of the date as well; 11/11 is full of ones, which represent people who are single. On this day a lot of singles go shopping to pamper themselves. I guess it's kind of a day to celebrate it or to find other singles and get a partner. I think this way of observing November 11 is more popular in China and Korea.

As you can probably guess, the mood of people is nothing special on this day. Coming from a country where this day is a holiday and a somber one at that, it is quite an empty feeling. I still pay my respects in my own way to our soldiers, but it is hard to feel so somber when no one else does. This year, like every other year, I made a poppy, had a minute of silence, and I reflected on the sacrifice of Canadians. It seems cheap to make such an important historical day about something as silly as pocky, shopping or finding a girlfriend or boyfriend. I can't change it though. 

In Japan, people don't pay respects to their fallen soldiers. I suppose the reason is that they are ashamed or in denial about their eager aggressive military past. However, I think it's important to honour those that did fight for their country, even though they were on the losing side. The individual soldier is not to blame for the horrendous acts done by the Japanese imperial army.

Today is November 12, so now I can start thinking about the holidays. It's still a little early, but they can't be ignored since Japan has been ready since closing hours on October 31. 

Onjuku Trip and Last Surf

I'm writing this long after these things happened. Now, they seem like a lifetime ago... Yesterday, 6 new events were approved for the 2020 Summer Olympics  in Tokyo: surfing (!), softball, baseball, karate, sport climbing, and skateboarding. Surfing will be held in Chiba, near to where I surf. The surfing event location is in Ichinomiya, a little town that is well known for its waves. This past May there was a pro surf competition held there that attracted surfers from around the world. Anyway, that's exciting, I think!

At the beginning of July, I went to Onjuku and stayed at The Flying Sumo for a night. That way I was able to get 2 days of surfing in. The first day I arrived around 10:30 and went out for a good surf. It was a sunny and very windy day, so the conditions were difficult. Paddling against the wind and stopping my board from flying away kept me busy. It was still fun if sloppy and hard. After surfing, the wind wasn't going to die down so I packed the board in for the day and went walking around Onjuku. 

Curiously, there are lots of abandoned buildings, some like this one, left in major disrepair and acting as a major hazard. 

I found a cat in the ruins! It just stared at me and pretended it couldn't be seen.

Then there is this complex... What it was, I don't know. Perhaps it was a care home, a hotel, or an apartment complex. Inside the plants are taking over and it's wild, as well as another significant safety hazard...

This is Onjuku, the calm before the storm of summer. In the summer, the beach opens and restaurants and vendors open up on the beachfront. They also create swimming areas where we're not allowed to surf. I suppose that's for the best.

  The sun was beginning to set. Sooo beautiful. 

As usual, I sustained a hand sunburn (this one even peeled!). I even wore sunscreen.

This is the first time I've ever found a sand dollar on the beach. It was so cute and small!

The next day, I got up super early to go surfing with the surf shop staff. I'm glad I did, because the sun wasn't too strong and there weren't too many people. I stayed out for 3.5 hours surfing. It was a good session. I was pretty tired when I finished, but it was all worth it. That's the perfect way to spend a weekend.

The next and last time I went surfing was on a national holiday in Japan, aptly named Sea Day (海の日). That was July 18. On this day, the waves were small but it was fun. There was no wind so it was easy to paddle out against the waves. After that session, (about 3 hours?) I took my board back to the shop and took off the fins. I brought my board back home :( 

It was so sad to leave and know I won't be back for awhile and that I'm going to miss my favourite season... Fall. At least I had a few good rides in the end. Hopefully I'll be back out quickly.

Trip to Busan - Golden Week 2016

This year for Golden Week I went to Korea again. I was a little worried in light of the tense situation with North Korea. Extra worrying was the Party Congress that North Korea was gearing up for... In the previous week there were 2 (failed) missile launches. I was worried they were going to launch an attack in honour of their special day, but nothing happened. Luckily, I was going to Busan this time, not Seoul. Seoul is directly south and an obvious target for North Korea, whereas Busan is in the south of Korea. 

This trip was hastily put together and came after my rather shocking news, so it has been a bit of a distraction for me. However, my thoughts often turned to that shock and the possibility of impending surgery. I keep telling myself that it isn't necessary and that the MRI will be negative for any damage. Two days after I get home I have a doctor's appointment where more will be decided. Here's hoping no surgery!

Anyway, back to the trip! I left Tuesday afternoon and arrived at around 8:30 pm in Busan at Gimhae International Airport. The day was very windy and I was warned by the airline that we might get sent back to Narita if the winds were too strong. My friend was supposed to arrive much earlier, but her flight was delayed and she ended up arriving only slightly earlier than me. The flight was smooth and I watched half of "The Revenant" on the plane. I guess I'll watch the other half on the way back. We were served a small meal (!) of beef and rice. It was good (except for the rice...). After we met up, we tried to find our way to the guesthouse... It was no easy feat because everything was in Korean (surprise, surprise). We got on a bus and then I thought I saw the characters for our stop, and we got off, much too early. Oh well. We found our way and had a rather long walk to the hotel. At least it helped me get my bearings. The guesthouse is called Yusun Guesthouse. The owner is really nice and it's very cheap! For 5 nights it cost me ¥6500. It's of course not very clean and fresh looking, but it works. 

On the second day, we wandered around our guesthouse area. There is nothing around it. There is one tiny convenience store and then everything else is industrial, meat-related or building related. We eventually found a cafe (which are ubiquitous everywhere but our area, apparently...) and had some much needed coffee. After that we walked around more and found a busy shopping area and traditional market. The market was huge and it mostly sold meat, fish, and vegetables and fruit. It was very interesting to walk around. After the market we decided to look for food. It's very difficult in a non-touristy place because everything is in Korean. We found a restaurant with pictures and pointed to what we wanted. It was a one pot kind cooking kind of place, like hotpot. 

My friend and our hotpot stew dish. It had lots of greens and then stewed beef bones with meat on them. It was good but soooo filling. 

After lunch we went to find the folk fishing museum and were able to find it just as it was closing :( With nothing else to do, we went shopping a little instead and found a Starbucks and had very expensive coffee. A tall cappuccino was about $5 (or 4600 won). Crazy! After that we made our way back to the guesthouse. 

This was displayed at Starbucks, where there was an impressive lack of sugar. Only white, brown, and liquid sugar were available...

The next day we went to the Busan Museum and Cultural Centre. At the cultural centre there was an exhibition of calligraphy. I remember finding a similar thing in Seoul. Here are some of my favourites: 

After the exhibition we went to the museum. We passed by the U.N. Memorial Cemetery, the only one of its kind in the world. Buried/interred there are the graves of the U.N. Soldiers who fought to keep Korea free during the Korean War. I think there are 2200 graves there. 

 U.N. Memorial monument.

UN memorial cemetery.

Playing on Korean park exercise equipment.

Trying to mold myself to the glop of public art.

After the museum (I didn't take pictures inside), we went for lunch, we had bibimbap, a popular Korean dish that mixes vegetables, beef, a raw egg and rice in a hot bowl. It was okay, luckily I gave most of my rice to my friend, so it was more enjoyable. 

After lunch we had a cultural experience and partook in a traditional Korean tea ceremony. It was similar to Japan, but also different. 

I'm making tea in the traditional way!

The set up and the sweets. 

Perfectly lined up. 

Interestingly enough, the tea ceremony explanation had to be done in Korean and Japanese. We were the only two non Koreans there, but they couldn't do it in English, so we got it in Japanese. It was nice to hear and speak Japanese. Everytime I wanted to speak to Koreans, only Japanese would come out, as if it were a reflex. It was strange.

The cursory freeze shot in front of the museum.

I can jump sooo high (not- talented photographer)!

This was for Glen.

After tea ceremony we went to oncheonjang, an area at the base of the mountains with lots of hot springs. We went to the Onsen in Korea and it was good but also alarming. In Japanese onsens, there are many rules and I expected the same of Korean ones, but I was wrong. People were washing themselves by the pools, sitting on the floor and grooming themselves, swimming in the Onsen, and putting their heads underwater. All of these are no-nos in Japan. The Japanese Onsen experience is much quieter, politer and calmer. 

This is a colourful monument to the onjeong well, which supplied Onsen water for a bathhouse almost 400 years ago. They say the water was hot enough to hardboil an egg back then.

This was a motel (I'm pretty sure it was a love hotel, and the place was full of em) with a very interesting inscription on it: "have you ever slept in the motel 'dream' that kills you" 

I'm not sure what to make of that... 

That concludes the write up for the first half of my Busan trip. There's more to come!

Animal Café Culture in Japan

Japan is rife with cuteness. We all know it. We can’t deny it. We all want it. That’s why people flock to animal cafes in Japan, which are also becoming increasingly popular in other parts of the world. Japan, I’m pretty sure, is the birthplace of the cat café and the subsequent various animal cafes that came later. This makes sense; People living in big cities like Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka are living in tiny little boxes of apartments and have no space for pets. Let alone time. Let alone money. Therefore, it’s a clever idea to have a place where people can pay to pet animals for 30 minutes to an hour and then go home. All the benefits of a pet and none of the responsibility or costs associated.

Pets are particularly expensive in Japan. If you go to a pet shop, you can look at all the cute little puppies and kittens; just don’t look at the price. A little French bull dog will cost you 500,000 yen, or $5,000. That cute calico kitten? 300,000 yen. Say you suck it up and pay the price for your desired pet. Then you have to get the finest food, electrolyte water for those hot summer months, pee pads, butt wipes, fancy collars, clothes, grooming, nail cutting, stroller, bed, etc. Then you have to pay a pet damage deposit for your pet (2 months’ rent? 100,000 – 200,000 yen). When you go on vacation or a business trip, who will take care of the pet? No one, so you have to use a pet hotel. I don’t know how much they cost, but they probably aren’t cheap. So as you can see, why buy a pet if you can just go to a café? It’s much cheaper and easier.

These days, animal cafes are not limited to cats. There are cafes for owls, hedgehogs, goats, dogs, rabbits, monkeys, penguins, reptiles, parrots, hawks, falcons, finches and other small birds, lizards, snakes and goldfish. I’m sure there are more that I haven’t listed. If you go to one of these cafes, the general flow is pay for the amount of time you want in the café, look at the animals, pet the animals, buy a drink and food, eat and drink, buy food or outfits for the animals, feed them or dress them, leave. Of course the order of business changes for each café. In some cafes, like owl cafes, you are not allowed to touch the animals. However, in cat cafes, you can touch them all you want.

Remember when I said everyone was flocking to these cafes? Well, I’m not. I just can’t accept this notion of animal cafes. It feels wrong, predatory, unsanitary, and bad for the animals. There are some cafes where the welfare of the animals comes first, and perhaps they are rescue animals, but for the overwhelming majority, I’m sure this is not the case. Japan already has a big problem with stray cats and rabbits. Some islands are overrun with them. Yet, rather than find a solution to all these feral animals, animal cafes profit off their animals like a zoo, but with less regulation. That being said, with the explosion of animal café popularity, the government is trying to regulate the industry, but it seems it is mostly just regulating the hours of operation of these cafes.

Another problem I have with these cafes is that they are using wild animals: birds, predators, owls, penguins, reptiles, monkeys, etc. These are not domesticated animals like cats and dogs. They should not be cooped up and put on display in a café. The environment for these animals is troubling. At least in zoos, habitats are made to be realistic, but in animal cafes, it is far from their natural habitat. Since you are allowed to touch the animals (not in all cases), travelling to multiple cafes and touching multiple animals is risky for the health of the patron, as well as the health of the animals. Diseases can be spread from café to café, from animal to person to animal, and from animal to person. This is a big public safety concern, especially in a densely populated metropolis like Tokyo.

I am completely against animal cafes, the concept makes me very uncomfortable. I do however recognise the benefit that interaction with these animals can have on busy, stressed people. Pets are wonderful; they reduce stress and make people happy. But these animals are not pets. These cafes take attention from the real problems that Japan has with animals. If anything, they add to the problem of stray animals in Japan because fewer animals are rescued or adopted, and perhaps more are abandoned as a result of split second decisions to buy a cat (influenced by visiting a cat café) and then regretting the decision later, when there is no time or money to take care of the cat or it turns out to be jerk.

If animal cafes are going to exist, they must have a greater purpose. They must work for the animals. They must work towards solving Japan’s nasty abandoned pet problem and educate their customers about animal issues, proper treatment and care of animals, and they must advocate for adoption of animals and creation of shelters, rather than purchasing “new” pets from the pet mills. Pet mills are another huge problem in Japan that will probably never be addressed. *sigh*

I don’t mean to rant (well actually… yes I do), but I just can’t support animal cafes, especially those toting animals like penguins, owls, or reptiles and keeping them in inappropriate habitats.

In Japan, anything can be turned into a café. Why? It’s weird. 

Floor Horsemen - Aichi edition - Oct. 25, 2015

On October 25, 2015, an event called Floor Horsemen - Back to Van City, held in Kariya City, Aichi prefecture. This event originated in Vancouver, and it was created and organized by some friends. Since there are a lot of dancers that come from Japan to Vancouver, they decided to bring the event to Japan. One of the creators even came to Japan to help put it on. 

I have seen the pictures of the previous events in Vancouver, both of which occurred while I was in Japan, and I really wanted to go. When I found out that there would be an event in Japan, I knew I had to go. Unfortunately, the timing was not so convenient, but I made it work.

I took a night bus to Nagoya. It left Saitama shintoshin station at 11:45 pm on Saturday evening and arrived at 4:45 am Sunday morning. The night bus was loud and uncomfortable, so I didn't get much sleep. 

This is the bus I took. 

Upon arrival, it was dark, cold and windy and too early to do much. I found a combini (convenience store) and bought a coffee. Then I walked around debating whether to check into a hotel for a few hours. In the end, I found Denny's and ate a bit of breakfast and drank a lot of coffee. I left around 6 am. From there, I decided to explore the city. I walked to Nagoya Castle. 

One of the iconic buildings around Nagoya station.

On my way to the castle I found a shrine upon a roof. 

Then I found a larger shrine, the walls were original, but the main buildings had been rebuilt. It was closed.

This is a shrine at a historic bridge. 

I can't remember what the bridge was called. It led away from a covered market area.

My first glimpse of Nagoya Castle. It was about 3 or 4 km from the station, so it took a while to get there.

A closer shot, and the best shot. I couldn't get into the castle because... You guessed it, it was closed. 

A statue near the castle. Don't remember who he is.

Castle walls and a former moat?

Let's play a game, how many cats can you find? There were so many stray cats in Nagoya!

A part of the castle!

This is one of the original gates for the castle. I believe this is the east gate.

I found a little shrine to the fire goddess for protection against fires. 

The main shrine building and its requisite torii.

A little altar at the end of the Torii gates. 

This is Nagoya station. It has two towers. It's a nice place. At this time it was around 8 am. Still early. No shops open, just convenience stores.

After visiting the castle, I went to Starbucks for more coffee. 

After Starbucks, I wandered around the city centre a little more. I liked this building.

I went shopping, and found this motor bike. It was only ¥10,000,000.

Eventually I left Nagoya for Kariya, where the event was to be held. I arrived a bit early, so I walked around the city, but there isn't much around there. 

The event was held at a music lounge called Birdland. It was a very cool little place, filled with all sorts of interesting collectibles. The event had a very relaxed and fun vibe, and the dance floor was open for most of the event. There was a live DJ and several exhibitions. Rather than try and explain it, you can watch a recap of the event put together by the creator.

https://vimeo.com/145017201

After the event I had to get home and go to work the next day. I took the train back to Nagoya station and caught the Shinkansen back to Tokyo.

It was a wonderful one day trip on almost no sleep. I'm really glad I got to experience floor horsemen in Japan.