07/22/2019
After work on Friday, I went bowling with the company! I sat on the bus next to Rama-san, the ride taking about 30 minutes to a bowling alley in Nara. When we arrived, they gave us all a bento box, which is just a dinner box with separated sections having different types of food in each segmented area. I could only really eat rice, one piece of tempura, and a small piece of watermelon because everything else was fish or meat. We could have unlimited soft drinks or beer to drink, which they call a drink bar. There aren't usually free refills in Japan like there are in America, but if there is a drink bar there are! I drank coke, but one of the people that bowled with us ordered a large beer and just spilled it all over the floor. He actually won the first game, with around 141 points. A different person won the second game, with around 124 points. I scored around 73 points for the first game, and 83 for the second.
It was a lot of fun, even though bowling is not my favorite. Everyone was surprisingly competitive but also encouraging. The Japanese people are always so quiet and (I don't want to say impersonal, but it is kinda true). They typically aren't as friendly and open as Americans, so I wasn't expecting such friendly competition. They gave out awards at the end, but I couldn't understand enough to tell you what they were for. They had both individual and team awards. I think most of them were snacks, or maybe a certificate. One prize was a huge stuffed animal, which is kinda surprising to me. Back home, a prize would be like a gift card or a 6 pack, not a stuffed animal (unless you were a kid). This illustrates one significant cultural difference between America and Japan. Stuffed animals and the like are not as socially acceptable or even desirable for adults in America. However, in Japan, they tend to cherish these things. Women here still wear the frilly socks I wore to Sunday Service when I was 8 years old. Sometimes, I feel that I fit in with the Japanese cultural aspect because I like wearing bows in my hair. In Japan, that is SO NORMAL. In the USA, I am typically the only one. Overall, I was really happy to have the opportunity to attend a company wide event (almost everyone at the research center went).Â
 It was a lot of fun, even though bowling is not my favorite. Everyone was surprisingly competitive but also encouraging. The Japanese people are always so quiet and (I don't want to say impersonal, but it is kinda true). They typically aren't as friendly and open as Americans, so I wasn't expecting such friendly competition. They gave out awards at the end, but I couldn't understand enough to tell you what they were for. They had both individual and team awards. I think most of them were snacks, or maybe a certificate. One prize was a huge stuffed animal, which is kinda surprising to me. Back home, a prize would be like a gift card or a 6 pack, not a stuffed animal (unless you were a kid). This illustrates one significant cultural difference between America and Japan. Stuffed animals and the like are not as socially acceptable or even desirable for adults in America. However, in Japan, they tend to cherish these things. Women here still wear the frilly socks I wore to Sunday Service when I was 8 years old. Sometimes, I feel that I fit in with the Japanese cultural aspect because I like wearing bows in my hair. In Japan, that is SO NORMAL. In the USA, I am typically the only one. Overall, I was really happy to have the opportunity to attend a company wide event (almost everyone at the research center went).Â
On Saturday, I woke up early to go to Osaka to meet up with Will, who also goes to UC. Unfortunately, I looked at the wrong bus schedule, so I missed the first bus I had wanted to take. I needed to be in Osaka by 10:30 and it looked like now I was going to arrive around 10:36. Luckily, I was still able to catch the same train (I had to run), but I made it there at 10:18...maybe closer to 10:25 because I got a little lost in Osaka-Namba station. There are literally like 25 exits in that place, so it's really hard to find the correct direction to exit sometimes. Will and I were going to see Kabuki, which is traditional Japanese theater. They use extremely traditional Japanese language, so many Japanese people can't understand what they're saying, so we figured it wouldn't be a huge loss if we went. Tickets are typically really expensive, around $100-130 USD. We found some matinee tickets for just under $60. Anyway, I waited for him at the theater. I knew he arrived first, so I assumed he had gone inside and tried to enter. However, I didn't realize you needed your ticket to get in, and there were so many people behind me that I couldn't possibly turn around and go back, so I waited inside the entrance way for him to come. He got held up buying omiyage (gifts, souvenirs) for one of his colleagues. A couple minutes later, he saved me from despair and embarrassment and we entered the building. The theater performance usually lasts 3-4 hours, ours had two intermissions. They sold bento boxes for those who wanted to eat lunch during the intermissions because the show started at 11 and would go through lunch. Will bought one. There wasn't much I could eat in them, so I bought some chocolate covered almonds and some cracker sticks (similar to the pizza sticks we have in the USA).Â
We settled into our seats, and began watching the show. To open, they have someone run (walk quickly) across the stage to manually open the curtain. I am not sure why they wouldn't just use a string curtain, but maybe it is part of the tradition. I will do my best to explain what I saw, but honestly it is really difficult because I have never seen anything like it before... and I doubt I will ever see anything that compares. The first scene took place in what I would think was feudal Japan, with all the men in traditional garb for work or hiking, and all the women in kimonos and full geisha make-up (white painted face, eye make-up, lipstick). This is the closest thing I could find for men, although they also wore kimonos in the homes, as seen in the second picture with a Japanese lady's traditional outfit (minus the geisha make-up, which is seen in the third picture). Â
Throughout the entire show, everyone's costumes were SO Japanese. Low key, I imagined a lot of Japanese people to dress like that. They don't. They still wear kimonos for special occasions, but their style isn't THAT far off from the west. It is a little more conservative and like little kid cute, but they wear it well. I could never pull off some of the clothes that look soooo good on women here. I would look so bad.
Anyway, these men were just kinda walking around talking about stuff. There was an older man that had some packages he was carrying and kept like sitting down on them as if he was tired from carrying them. He probably had 6 or 7 packages. He ran into a younger guy who seemed to know him, and they walked to the younger guy's house maybe?? Once they got there, he delivered the packages and the woman there kept yelling at him about something and he was like mad that she was trying to make him take off his mountain clothes and wear a kimono instead. Eventually, both men changed. I couldn't tell if the lady was the young guy's wife or mom. I think wife but IDK. There were a bunch of men that showed up to the house and brought another women with them. The young guy seemed embarrassed and wanted to hide her from his other lady, but she seemed really into him. Then another, larger geisha lady came into the scene and waltzed into the house and sat down. Her force must have shook the house because a basket dropped on her head and nearly knocked her out. The woke up and started trying to flirt with the old package guy that was upset about his kimono. The young guy kept running away from these two women and like trying to show he was with the other original lady, but honestly he seemed somewhat like a player. The first geisha was like chasing around the old guy when this samurai came in and tried to fight him for some reason, but the old guy ended up trapping him and tying him up. Honestly, I don't know. We had intermission and both ate our lunch (or snacks) and talked about the first act for 35 minutes.
The second act was a lot shorter, maybe only 20-25 minutes. It was basically just this emperor like guy with some ladies with long hair and other advisers surrounding him. I honestly couldn't tell who was talking or not because they all sat so still. There were two dancer ladies that entered to dance for the emperor guy , but last minute the turquoise (color of her outfit) dancer pulls a knife on him and tries to kill him. She failed, and was tied up. Her pink dancer friend, acts like she was shook by the attempt and sits down at the emperors feet. That was pretty much the end of the second act. We had a 25 minute intermission afterwards.Â
The third act was about these fighters (maybe samurai?). I honestly don't remember this scene super well. It was the longest one and I was really tired. I do remember that there was this one man with very bloodied clothes that was fighting all the fighters at once. The fighters were led by this red painted face Japanese man. Anyway, the bloodied guy basically loses and they force him up this mountain, and he ties himself to a huge anchor and drops himself into the ocean. Later, there is this scene with a child singing (maybe like the new emperor leader or something?, I think she sang for the original emperor but I can't quite remember clearly). Anyway, she seemed to command these people and soldiers to be fighting and moving around, and she kept singing while some person was dying. I don't really understand this at all. I do remember that after the anchor guy went down, a bunch of ships did too. There were a lot of women with long hair that cried during that scene. I know my explanation is a little difficult to follow, but that is about the best I can do with the language barrier.Â
The show ended around 3:30 pm, so we were there for about 4.5 hours. It was definitely a unique experience, and its the most traditional Japanese thing I have probably done since I have arrived. I would definitely recommend that you go ONCE, because it's an experience. I did enjoy it. After the show, Will and I went to the kit-kat store in Osaka breifly before parting our separate ways. In just under two weeks, he will be back in the USA and I will follow him a week later!
My Sunday was pretty relaxed. I went to church in the morning. I left a little later because I was talking to Sue for the last time for a while. She will be in Ohio for a month to help her dad recover during his heart surgery. Pray that everything goes smoothly! I am really grateful for Sue, as she brought me a lot of comfort when I first arrived in Japan. She watched over me for the first couple months and helped me make friends at church. It was so cool to meet someone who was from the same state as me and lived in Japan! I will miss her dearly, but hopefully I can see her on one of her visits to the USA.
After I arrived back home, I went to the supermarket to get food for the week and came home to work on some laundry. After all that was finished, I met up with Yassi around 5:00 pm to go to Kyoto. We stopped at a vegan ramen and udon shop for dinner. I had Ramen for the first time since I came to Japan and it was delicious! Yassi had the same, but proceeded to add about a pound of a spicy mixture to hers to give it a little more flavor. Her soup broth was RED from adding so much, she must be like a fire breathing dragon to tolerate that heat. We were rushing to finish so that we could make it to T-Joy movie theater on time. They were showing the English Toy Story 4, so we were planning to meet up with Kazuki for the 7 pm showing. We got a little lost and arrived around 7:06. We only really missed the commercials though, so no worries. Actually, Yassi missed the first five minutes of the movie because she was so thirsty she couldn't wait, so she went out to buy a coke and popcorn. Overall, the movie was pretty good. It seemed a little weird that the main character was made out of trash and seemed like kind of a weird obsession, but I still liked it in the end. I don't know that they should continue making them though because it seems like a final end to the plot. After the movie, we headed towards the train station, stopping at Lawson briefly for water and ice cream. It was like 10,000 degrees with humidity, so the ice cream tasted amazing. I got home around 10, catching an earlier bus. For once, I arrived home before Yassi. She only has a 7 minute walk from her station, when I have a 10 minute bus ride + 4 minute walk. She stopped at the supermarket for some pineapple so I beat her home. She texted me freaking out that she saw a cockroach near her apartment, on like the second floor. I could only imagine the look on her face .😊Honestly, we both were shocked because Japan is so clean that you would never expect to see them here. We saw them a TON in Thailand and were pretty freaked out, but I have never seen one in Japan. Luckily, there aren't any near me (that I have seen). Hopefully, there aren't any in Ohio because I will be back in less than three weeks!!