Okay, so I've been a little bit lazy lately and haven't sent any
e-mails for a while, but this doesn't mean I haven't been doing
anything.  So for a little bit of a preview since my last e-mail I
watched Sumo live, went to Okayama and the island Shikoku, saw Naruto,
ate Kujira Sashima (whale), ate at two Iron Chef restaurants, and
finally found a cheap way to play pool and bowl.  Let's see first I
guess my trip.  I went to Okayama and the island of Shikoku with my
Japanese friend Shinya, whose gonna be leaving Kobe and moving to the
Kanto area soon.  To get to Okayama, which is about halfway between
Kobe and Hiroshima, took about 4 hours of riding the train, of course
this was not Shinkansen, we tried to do a cheap trip, so we had
something called Seishin Jyu Hachikipu, which cost about 8000 yen and
lets me ride the train for any five days for a month, at no charge,
but only local trains, no shinkansen or other type of express train.
We were allowed to catch the super rapid, which is quick, but not that
quick.  This trip took quite a bit of transferring and we spent a lot
of time waiting around.  But we had some fun.  At every stop on the
train there is an announcer at the back who says what you can transfer
to, where you are, what the next stop is, maybe a few other things,
I'm not so sure as its all in Japanese.  But on our train ride we had
one of those guys who was sick with a cold, so he kept coughing or his
voice would just crack and fade off so it sounded really funny and we
got caught in a fit of giggles, which was a little embarassing since
we were the only people on the train who happened to find this funny,
but I couldn't help it, especially since he was coughing at perfect
times, for example one thing I often here is, "Noriban noribakara,
shinkisoku..."  Don't ask me what it means, something about
transfering to the superrapid, but when he said it, it sounded like,
"Noriban noribakaraaaahaaahaaaahmmmm, shinkisokuuuuuucaaaaahaaahmmm."
Another funny thing about the train rides was we were using the
Seishin Ju Hachikipu, which I will now refer to as the SJH, which is a
pass that is stamped with the date and we both just used the one.  So
when you walk through the gates entering and leaving each train
station, you show the pass and of course I would say "Futari", two
people.  But no one even looked at it at all, we could have had a
piece of paper, I stopped even showing it and just said "Seishin,
Futari," and it worked.  So I felt like I got ripped off.  Anyway, in
Okayama we rode the Roman Densha, or Trolley to the famous Korakoen,
which is a very big garden there.  This place was pretty cool, they
had many plum trees which were still in bloom and they had lots of
ancient cherry trees, which were not in bloom yet, but which would
have been cool.  They also had some pretty strange looking trees and
the really old style Japanese houses.  The most interesting thing they
had or maybe the most entertaining is what we called the Douzo (please
when offering) bridge.  This bridge is made out of wood and zigzags
across the water, so it has little places where you can stand to the
side about every five feet, where you can offer someone say coming the
other way or coming your way the right of way or allow them to pass,
thus it is the Douzo bridge.  After the park we stopped at a
restuarant directly across the river from Okoyama Castle, which had a
great view of this castle, which happens to look so brand new it might
have an elevator.  Many castles were rebuilt in Japan recently to give
people say a sense of the old view of their town.  So Osaka castle for
example is under 50 years old and is a museum with an elevator, but
looks old Japanese style on the outside, Okoyama Jo, must be very
similar.  At this restaurant we had two Okoyama specialties, one was
Mamakari, which is kind of like Sardine and actually pretty tasty, of
course, the head was removed and so was the guts which was very nice,
because a lot of the time in Japan, small fish are served whole.  It
also wasn't cooked, but marinated in vinegar, so that it was cooked by
the acidity.  It was nice.  Also, we had Doppo, which is a German
style Japanese beer, much closer to Japanese than German style
although one of the tastier beers I've had since I've been in Japan.
Pretty much everywhere only has Japanese beer or its expensive, so it
sucks a little bit.  So I had a dark beer here, but it was sweet
instead of heavy, made more to the Japanese pallet.  From here we went
to Kurashiki (pronounce Krashki, which sounds russian to me (on a side
note of a side note, there are 3 Japanese sounds which are often
omitted, these are i (pronounced ee), u (prounced like you without the
y), and o (pronounced like the o in wrote), so often in words these
sounds will be almost non-existant and/or slurred or faded out, so for
example to like something is suki, which sounds almost like ski, but
with a slight u, or o comes at the end of a lot of borrowed words so
for example one might order toast, by saying tosuto, but the u and o
are fairly unpronounced, and i I can't really think of a good example,
ahh maybe cake is caeki, but this i is usually pronounced, so you
never know).  So anyway, Kurashiki is an old style Japanese town with
a river running through the middle that looks like an old Japanese
Samarai movie, which is pretty cool.  On the outskirts of this it
looks like an old European village, with cobblestone and brick
buildings.  Here I went to a paper museum, which was cool, it had
dioramas made out of paper that were three dimensional towns, it was
really crazy.  I also had some really good coffee at a very old coffee
shop.  And ate another strange Okoyama food which is barbecued fish
paste, actually very tasty, it tasted like just barbecue and thats
about it with a hint of fish flavor.  From here we rode the train
across the water to the island of Shikoku, which is the 4th largest
island in Japan and fairly close to Kobe via Awaji Island, but I
wanted to go to Takamatsu as it is famous for Sanoki Udon and a very
old castle.  It was pretty fun on the train, because we took some
beers with us which is legal in Japan and maybe only slightly looked
down upon.  In Shikoku, we did hashi go udon.  Hashi go is I think
slang for going from one place to the next for example bar hopping
would be hashi go bar (or in Japanese baa).  So this means I ate a lot
of food.  Of course when you do something like this it just so happens
that luck kind of sucks, so the first place we went to was the best,
so by the time we got to the last place it was getting pretty hard to
eat.  Then we got a hotel.  This was pretty difficult, because the
first two places had no rooms and the 2nd had not racism, but maybe
ignorance.  They didn't want to rent to me, because they only had
Japanese rooms.  I've heard of this happening because of racism
before, where they don't think foreigners will understand what to do
and maybe the most racist thing they might say is that we will pee all
over the tatami mats, but at this place they just didn't think I would
be comfortable.  So I had to explain that I live in Japan, have tatami
mats at home, sleep on a futon, think Japanese rooms are comfortable,
show them my gaijin card, proving that I lived in Japan for about 5
months.  This was difficult in Japanese, but they finally understood
that it was okay and we were able to hashi go baa.  In Takamatsu
unfortunately, even though bars don't have anything special, they
pretend to, so there was a cover charge or sitting charge at almost
all bars.  Finally we found a pool hall, where at least that extra
money would go to doing something.  This was all around the most
happenin area in Takamatsu, which is the longest mall in Japan, which
is more of a covered street (as it is in much of Japan) with all kinds
of places to go.  The next day we went to  Takamatsu castle, which was
cool, but largely destroyed as it has had no work done on it unlike
many castles in Japan.  So the main castle was gone and there was only
one main guard tower.  But there was also a cool old guest house where
once the emperor stayed.  And they have salt water moats, which have
tai (red snapper) swimming in them.  This was very hard to explain to
my Japanese students.  They kept saying no thats coy.  And I would say
I know what coy is and I know what red snapper is, it was salt water,
ocean water, sea water, it was tai.  The garden here was really cool,
because it was not what you think when you think garden, it was many
ancient pine and other big trees, so no pictures, but very cool.  I
think it was made about the same time as the castle which is the late
1500's.  The main gate was also destroyed in WWII so there wasn't much
left to look at, but it was very nice to see after seeing the very new
castle.  After this we went to get a view of the small town (which is
pretty full of stuff and giant for a small town).  And fortunatley
here there was also a restaurant run by the Iron Chef Chen Kennichi.
I had garlic chili fried shrimp and squid in his famous sauce made
with ketchup and spicy stuff.  It was awesome.  It was probably the
best chinese food I have ever had and it was at the 29th floor of the
tower so it had an awesome view.  Plus we got the lunch special so
instead of it being about 50 dollars it was fifteen.  Next we met
Shinyas friend and drove to Naruto to see the whirlpools (Naruto).
These form constantly all day long, which makes it a very unique place
in the world.  So it was pretty cool.  You walk out on the bottom of
this bridge, which has windows cut into it, which are very scary to
walk over and the Naruto form and dissapear constantly.  We luckily
got there at one of the two best times of day, high tide, the other
being low tide.  So many were forming and ships were driving all
around them, tour boats of course.  Then we went to the Naruto museum
and I learned how they formed in Japanese, which I can explain
slightly, on the outside the water is fast and on the inside of the
straight it's slow and there is a deep channel in the middle.  That's
about all I know.  but it happens all the time.  We drove back to
Takamatsu to catch the ferry.  I don't think I've mentioned how
disconcerting it is to drive in Japan, because everything is reversed,
people ride each others rearend, the streets are tiny, etc.  But
contrary to US stereotype, every time I've been in a car the person
drove fine except for the danger I felt I was in, but in Japan you
have to drive like that for the roads to work.  In Takamatsu we had
time to kill before the ferry home, so we went and got sushi and oddly
enough stumbled upon a place that served whale sashimi and
nagirizushi, so I had to try it, even though I know I was eating
something that shouldn't be eaten, curiosity and time limit made me
want to try it.  It's not so good.  It was very fatty and almost
flavorless with the meat texture resembling, but a little tougher than
the good tuna (maguro).  In Japan it was historically eaten after
WWII, when the country was rather devastated after losing.  The US
government actually suggested that they eat it as a cheap and easy way
to make sure the Japanese public get enough protein, so a lot of older
students remember eating fried whale in school lunches when they grew
up and most didn't like it, even though after tasting it I though
fried would be the best way to eat it as the fat content would make it
really crisp up on the outside.  The rest of the sushi was really good
as we got chef's choice, he picked out some great stuff, so it was
nice and it was actually really cheap only 15 bucks a person, which is
a great price for good sushi.  The ferry home was awesome.  It was
under 13 dollars and took about four hours.  They had an arcade, free
massage chairs, an udon shop, a tv room, a sento (public bath), like
an indoor onsen or hottub, and a chill room where you just lay on the
floor.  So there was plenty to do to take up the four hours.  I tried
the sento for the first time, which is a little creepy, one reason
I've avoided it.  It is getting naked and showering with a bunch of
other dudes, then sitting in extremely hot water naked with them and
talking about stuff.  A little creepy because I made a joke and got
tapped on the shoulder by the guy next to me.  But it was relaxing,
although after I got out even though I did a cold shower I was hot for
the next hour.  So that was my trip to Shikoku, I think I'll e-mail
about the other stuff later, this got erased midway through, so I had
to retype half of it.  Attached are some photos.  The first five are
the garden in Okayama, then the castle, then Kurashiki, my hotel,
Takamatsu castle, Takamatsu, lunch at Kennichi's restaurant, and whale
sashimi.  Strangely enough, I've taken on the Japanese habit of taking
pictures of things I never would before, such as food I've eaten.
Well, I guess I am in Japan, so I got to do what the Romans would do
or something like that.  Anyway, tommorow I will try to make sure and
e-mail the rest of the saga.

Dan