In any case, that’s what we’ll be doing today. It’s New Year’s Eve, and there are so many people rushing around the shops here, buying boxes of mochi and other NYE foodstuffs. Our hotel has several ‘New Year’s Events’. Today, there are New Year’s Noodles in the bar/restaurant, and tonight there’ll be a countdown. Mike recommended we go to Yokohama for NYE. A lot of people in Japan stay up all night 31 December and visit temples, where bells are rung 108 times at midnight. Then they’ll make their way to somewhere they can see the first sunrise of the year, called hatsuhinode.

Our  hotel room here in Tokyo is on the 30th floor (again). We’ve got a pretty good view out the window in our room, but we have to keep the blinds down because Tim is afraid of heights. I’m going to open them while he’s not in the room so I can take a photo.

Our hotel is pretty close to Tokyo station, which is kind of the reason we booked it (for shinkansen travel), but also, there is a shopping arcade under the station which has an upmarket department store and a whole heap of shops for toys and branded characters (eg. NHK’s characters incl. Domo-kun, some anime princessy show that looks a bit like a remastered version of Sailor Moon, rilakkuma…). It was so crowded yesterday afternoon. I’m hoping the crowds might calm down a bit before we go, because everything takes so much longer when there are so many people in the same place.

Autumn leaves (momiji)

Sakura

We saw snow through the windows of the train yesterday, but there’s no snow in Tokyo. Japan doesn’t seem to be able to decide what season it wants to be in, because I’ve seen both momiji and sakura. It’s still winter, however, so mostly there’s just bare trees.

Yesterday, Erin & Mayu took us to an okonomiyaki restaurant for lunch. Erin said there’s another place not far away that is a modern interpretation of okonomiyaki, and has lots of different options, but it was good to visit a traditional okonomiyaki place. The tables here had hotplates set in the middle, and the okonomiyaki was cooked in front of us by the same woman who served our drinks. On a side note, to ask for cold water, you say to the waiter/server ‘ohiya’, which Erin told us literally translates as ‘cold’.

The okonomiyaki was delicious. Tim had his with cheese, Mayu & I had mochi with ours, and Erin ordered a Hiroshima-style. I had only had mochi as a sweet (mostly with red bean paste inside) and I wasn’t sure what it would taste like savoury-style, but it was excellent. The best thing about mochi is the texture. It’s chewy and stretchy and weird, and doesn’t really have much of a flavour on its own.

The lobby of our hotel is on the 22nd floor of the building and has a chapel in it. It has a glass roof and the other end of the chapel is on the outside of the building. The architectural concept is designed to imitate Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace (Austria), which you can’t really see from inside the building.

Our room is on the 30th floor and has pretty decent views across Osaka city, though not as good as the views from Tsutenkaku Tower, where Mayu & Erin took us yesterday. The elevator to get to the top of the tower has glass sides, and so Tim experienced some vertigo and didn’t enjoy it as much as we did.

There is a huge network of underground malls/walkways in Osaka. When we leave our hotel, we can take escalators down to the Namba Walk, which connects to the subway system, without ever stepping outside.

It’s a strange feeling walking around in the underground malls and not seeing any other Caucasian faces anywhere. In Tokyo, there was an obvious mix of Japanese and foreigners. Here, that is less apparent. I don’t know where the other tourists are, which is actually kind of nice. It also seems like less people speak English here. We’re getting better at interpreting questions without knowing what exactly is being said. It’s getting easier to pick up the Japanese that I do know out of all that I don’t, whereas before it seemed like an uninterpretable staccato. It helps that people are so friendly here.

Tim is watching Mission:Impossible 2, which has been dubbed in Japanese. They do a pretty good job of syncing the voices & lip movements of the actors. I guess they would have a lot of experience in that, because everything here that’s not Japanese is dubbed. They made the Aussie guy in MI2 have an Australian accent, which is pretty impressive and also funny in Japanese.

The ads here are hilarious and make no sense. Then again, I don’t know how much sense our ads would make if you didn’t speak English. But also, sometimes it’s difficult to tell what’s an ad and what’s just a documentary. There was an ad earlier that seemed to just be someone interviewing old Japanese men in onsen (Japanese baths). Now Tim tells me that was actually a program, not an ad.

Tomorrow we will be meeting up with Mayumi & Erin at lunch time. I hope I’ll be able to sleep through tonight and not wake up and be discombobulated.

The joke from my Christmas cracker yesterday was the best:

Q. What do you call a donkey with three legs?
A. A monkey.

I did a google search, and I think the punchline is supposed to be ‘A wonkey’, which would make more sense than the version I got.

Did you know:

When the Space Invaders game was released in Japan, it was so popular that it created a coin shortage.

Probably going to see some of these guys soon.

This morning, an old man that I’ve seen before but don’t remember where or why, came into the bank and gave me a brochure about what’s on for New Year’s Eve at The Star. He said, “it’s a special party, only bank people are invited.” Then he said, “If you’re thinking about going, you’d better find a rich fella first!” I had a look, and it doesn’t even seem like it’s that pricey. The most expensive option is only $320.

I’m really tired and I have to get up relatively early tomorrow. The relative part is because it’s my day off, and I’ll be getting up even earlier than I would if I actually had work. I need to get everything organised for Friday, because we’ll be leaving at 5am for Brisbane. I can’t wait to see everyone again. I feel like it’s been ages since I saw Mum, Lauren & Nathan when really it’s only been a couple of months. It has been a while since I’ve seen Dad, though. Also, Rosie. But I can’t visit her because she said she’d get too upset.

I am falling asleeeeeeep…….. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Now all of Europe seems to be in a slump, but for different reasons. I suppose the end result is the same – the economy sucks, skilled & educated people move away to find better opportunities, people can’t spend as much money, industry slows, unemployment climbs… it’s depressing. Greatly depressing. See what I did there? But seriously, I don’t mean to make light of their situation.

Today Tim and I went shopping. We finished off the city shopping and headed to Haymarket to check out the el cheapo stuff at Paddy’s. On a side note, Tim said that the new Christmas ad for Paddy’s Markets is even more disturbing than the normal green-bag-butt-wiggling one – in the Christmas one, it apparently looks like the dad bag is shooting stars out his ass.

Also, the ad for Paddy’s says ‘…you haven’t been to markets ’til you’ve been to Paddy’s…’ which is patently untrue. I used to go to the Yamba markets all the time. Sometimes the Maclean ones, but they were held in a car park and once my sister got accused by a stallholder of stealing a ring (she didn’t), so there was always some awkwardness there. Plus, at the Yamba ones, we got little plastic tubes of honey from the honey stall.

Anyway, we stopped off at Morning Glory on our way and they had little pencil case type things which looked like different sorts of currencies. One of the currencies available was Deutschmarks. I commented that Deutschmarks is a defunct currency, and Tim said that it might end up being reinstated if the crisis in Europe worsens. I think that would be worst-case-scenario territory, and Tim agrees, but I never even considered the Euro might be dropped. It would be a huge undertaking, and much worse for some countries than others.

I don’t really know enough about the way it’s structured to say too much more on the subject. I’m sure Tim could enlighten me, but my brain would have to be in optimum order for that to work, and it’s just not happening right now.

* Going to the hyaku-yen shop(s)
* Having okonomiyaki in Osaka
* Trying takoyaki in Osaka
* Meeting up with Mayumi & Erin
* Going to Hakone (Jasmine showed me some photos today from when she went to Hakone. It looked awesome. She ate a black egg)
* Admiring the shiny coating of kinkakuji
* Shopping at konbini (コンビニエンスストア, konbiniensu sutoa – thanks Wikipedia!)
* Riding the shinkansen up & down Honshu

This will be the second year in a row that I won’t be in Australia to ring in the new year. I’m also hoping for snow, although we might not get to see any, even in Nagano. Snow is the best part of winters in the northern hemisphere (purely from a touristic point of view), and it’s the reason I usually travel overseas during Australian summer. I’ll cross my fingers but won’t hold my breath.

It was just me and Mike at trivia tonight (in our team). Kristen couldn’t make it, neither could Tim (aka Brain’s Trust) since he’s in Melbourne. We bombed out, like I knew we would, but Stefan joined us for the second round and actually prevented us from coming last, since he got a couple of questions we wouldn’t have gotten. It will be a lot better next week because Tim will be in Sydney and trivia master Jason Dean (full title for indexing’s sake) said the crossword will be Simpsons themed. Woohoo! Genki will recover from this week’s embarrassing results! Hopefully.

Tim: How do I get the lion to go to sleep?
Me: Put a moon in the sky. It goes to sleep at nighttime.
Tim: Aw it did. I was trying to give it a sleeping tablet. It didn’t work.
Me: Did it take it?
Tim: No, it destroyed it!

Tim: Hmm. Got to get that stupid lion to go through that hole.
Me: Did you figure out how to do it?
Tim: Yep. I put some meat there. It wouldn’t let me put a live animal there for him to chase after.

Tim: He’s setting up a government?
Tim types something…
Tim: Prime minister didn’t work!
Tim: (annoyed) why not a doctorrr?!
Tim: I’ve already created someone from this category… No I haven’t!
Me: What did you make?
Tim (defensively): Teacher!

Tim: Hm. fully clothe the mannequin.
Some time passes…
Me: did you try something and it didn’t work?
Tim: No, first I gave him a bra. Then I put a negligee on him and it threw the bra off. Then I put a corset on it and it threw off the negligee!
Tim: Latex bodysuit. … It threw off the corset!

I don’t know what I’m talking about.

So, back to Game of Thrones (the series is actually called ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ but for some reason whoever is in charge decided it should just be named after the first book). I’m really enjoying the series. There are a few characters that have become favourites of mine, and some that I despise, which is a good measure of the depth of character provided, and the believability of their motivations and reactions. It’s also difficult to say which side is good and which is bad, and a slowly unfolding moral ambiguity is always fun.

Daenerys Targaryen is one of the characters I like. I’ve written about her before, not long ago. Despite being the last in a long genetic line of habitual inbreeding, she’s not (so far) insane like her father and brother. In the last episode, her brother, Viserys, had boiling gold poured over his head (because Khal Drogo promised him a golden crown, get it? lol!!1) and I’m glad, because he was crap. That’s a picture of him on the left (click for a bigger version). He’s definitely not one of my favourites.

Another decent character is Jon Snow. Not only is he cute (look at that baby face!), he’s also an awesome swordsman and looks out for his friends. There’s some conjecture as to his parentage, because the surname ‘Snow’ indicates that he is a bastard. He’s supposedly Ned Stark’s bastard son, but Tim keeps telling me that there’s more to the story, and even though he’s read all the books released thus far, he’s still not aware of the truth of the matter. To me, it’s irritating that they keep talking about things like it’s already cut and dried – he’s Ned’s bastard. Later on, if they come out and say, “Oh, actually, he was Ned’s sister, Lyanna’s son, and he was protecting her honour,” I’ll be mightily peeved. Because right now, it doesn’t seem like that’s much of a mystery at all.

Khal Drogo is hot, though Tim depletes his appeal somewhat by constantly referencing Drogo’s pectoral muscles. “He needs to get a bra,” and “His boobs are bigger than Dany’s!” Never mind the fact that Dany is supposed to be 13. Maybe having dragon blood means you develop faster? Unfortunately, Khal Drogo’s costume only serves to support Tim’s opinion. I’m sure if he wasn’t wearing a corset-type thing, the issue wouldn’t be quite so pronounced. Costume dramas aside, the presence of the khalasar adds a possibility of anarchy to the mix – Daenerys may be the rightful heiress to the throne, but there’ll be a whole huge mess if Khal brings his horsey family over the narrow sea to King’s Landing.

Still, the guys are much more beguiling to watch in AFL than in NRL. It’s like the difference between an antelope and a rhinoceros, where the antelope is an AFL and the rhino is an NRL.

I’m remembering when we first moved here, and I’m trying to remember what it felt like being a relative stranger in Sydney, with only vague childhood memories of certain places as reference points. It feels like an entirely different place to the beginning of last year.

I found Sydney intimidating in the beginning. It was difficult to find my place (even though that’s really just something in my own mind). I didn’t know how to exist as myself here, whether or not I would be accepted. When you move to a new city, you get the feeling that you’re different in ways you can’t even begin to understand (to start with, anyway). I felt incredibly conspicuous.

It’s also a weird thought when you realise that not many people are aware of your existence in this new place. While feeling like I stood out as someone not from ‘here’, I also felt like I was invisible in other ways.

After a while, the out-of-the-ordinary becomes the ordinary, and it starts to feel a little bit more comfortable. You start to find your niche. You make connections, even if they’re not friendships to start with.

Being part of something speeds up the process. It’s like a catalyst – for something that would have happened anyway, getting a job or enrolling in a course just makes everything happen faster. You’ve got more opportunities to meet people, make connections, learn your place in the new scheme of things.

I was lucky throughout all of this – my best friend moved to Sydney around the same time as me. As did one of our mutual friends. And then another of our mutual friends had already been living in Sydney for a couple of years. So, I had built-in friendships, a ready-made support network.

I really like Sydney. I’ve come to recognise myself as a citizen of this place, even just a temporary one, rather than just a visitor. I take ownership of my past as a child of Queenscliff/Manly, and it makes me feel a little more like I belong here.

Sydney is a beautiful city. I’d like to have the opportunity to live in other places in Australia, such as Melbourne, so maybe that’s something for the future. Right now I’m happy where I am.