Adventures in Nagoya navigation

7/8/06

So… tired… So you get the executive summary.

Last night [7/7/06 - ed.] Sampath, Sarah, and I (hereafter referred to as the Holy Trinity of Funk for completely arbitrary reasons) went to the campus bar for a drink. There were only three other guys there, and soon after we set into our Guinnesses in comes Declan, our dean of international students. He downs a few beers, asks how our first day of classes went, and sets into storytelling. He’s a great guy, and I was sad when we had to leave for dinner (at about 9, of course). But! I did share with him and the other guys the formula which mathematically proves that women are evil, and he liked it so much that he posted it on the wall. So now I’m “part of the gang” apparently.

The Trinity then headed down to the local Denny’s, which, like its American counterpart, is open 24-7. It’s noticeably more expensive than the other restaraunts in the area, though, and the menu is unrecognizable to most Americans; the only familiar item on it was French toast. (They had some bizarre variation on a BLT which made me do a double-take, though I don’t recall what it was.) After the waiter ignored us for a solid ten minutes, Sampath finally walked up to him to get his attention—shortly after he left with our orders, we realized there was a button on the table to buzz for service. Go figure.

In any case, I got a card for 100yen off my next Denny’s meal (not that that will be happening any time soon) and got home and back to sleep.

True to jetlag, however, I woke up at 5 a.m. sharp. Sarah was still asleep, but I got up, took a bath, went to breakfast, and checked my e-mail from campus (and got a surprise e-mail from my friend Scott, whom I complained to endlessly about nearly everything… thanks for listening, dear, I owe you). It was worth it, but by the time she was ready to go to Nagoya for the day, I was already a bit sleepy.

[Sidenote: the mysterious egg from yesterday reappeared at breakfast this morning. I said to the mama-san on the way out, “This time I remember how to eat the egg!” and she just said “I’m glad!” Somehow I think she was enjoying the irony.]

So off to Nagoya we went. We finally figured out the ticket machines and automated entrances, only to get stared at on the train intermittently. We got off at the wrong stop, then got back on, rode it one more stop, and tada! We were in lovely (?) Nagoya. The original intent of the trip was to find the concert hall where Metronome is playing later this month, and buy our tickets there. The only other option, in fact, was to buy them at a Lawson convenience store, out of these godawful confusing machines that don’t have an English option and even most Japanese speakers can’t operate. Well, we didn’t know the name of the venue, let alone how to get there, and we didn’t even have a map. So after a 30-minute search for a fabled information booth (which we never found, though we got at least 3 different sets of directions from area shopkeepers), we ended up buying a Japanese map. After poring over the thing, I realized there’s no specific listing for concert halls, so it’s off with us to find an internet café.

Now to preface this next bit, it was 29 degrees Celsius today (84 Fahrenheit) and probably 60% humidity. Truth be told, it’s not comfortable. So we find a plain old coffee café and sit down to look at the map book. When the staff realizes we’re just sitting there, they usher us to the counter to buy something. Sarah gets some bizarre pink sour soda thingy, and I get iced coffee because it’s the first and cheapest thing on the menu. Finally I cave and ask where the nearest net café is. She directs us down the street, to an internet/manga café.

Now for those of you who’ve never been in such a place, it is nearly heaven on earth. It’s 310 yen for the first half-hour, and 90 for every 15 minutes after that. You sit in a little wooden booth, with a high-end computer, a huge, squishy chair with a footrest, and have unlimited access to the internet and their library of manga. It’s air conditioned, there are snacks, and the staff is very friendly. (Though I have to say, Japanese keyboards are the worst.) I check the venue hall, find it on the map, and bam! We’re outta there.

30 minutes’ walk later, we find the hall. The staff tells us that we can’t, in fact, buy the tickets there—we have to use those god-forsaken machines at the Lawson convenience stores. So we find one, and have to get one of the staff to walk us through it, only to find out we need to enter a phone number to proceed. The woman (who isn’t very bright) tells us she doesn’t know what to do, and that we should go to the OTHER Lawson convenience store across the street. One block later, we find the next Lawson, and I ask the girl at the counter what I should do if I don’t have a number. She shrugs and I decide I’m going to just make one up. So I do. And it works. Then we get the tickets. And my credit card doesn’t work. Now this isn’t a huge surprise, but it IS an ill-timed one, as I don’t have enough money to pay for both mine and Sampath’s tickets (I had to buy him one since he was resting at home today). Luckily, Sarah throws in her money and we have enough for all three of us. So I realize I need an ATM. None of the ATMs in the area take my cards, and none of the post offices (where the international ATMs are) are open. So we wander back toward the train station, basically broke except for our train money, and get a skimpy dinner from the Circle-K. (I get one onigiri—a rice ball wrapped around a bit of chicken and mayonnaise—and a bottle of Pepsi Nex, which I swear is the nectar of the gods. And it’s not “next”, it’s “Nex.” They’re cool enough to leave off letters here.)

So we get into the train station and promptly get lost. Again. I can’t find the line we need to get back home, until one woman who notices us being confused (and speaks English!) pointed us in the right direction. Long story short, we finally got home and I’m now on the brink of collapse. Though, on the bright side, I did get the tickets, navigate my way around Nagoya entirely in Japanese, and get a tee-shirt from the Hard Rock Café in Nagoya. It’s just that I walked at least ten miles today and my feet are killing me.

I’m also starting to notice the stares from the locals. Here in Okazaki they’re not bad, since I think the natives are used to seeing all the foreign students around, but in Nagoya it was unbelievable. We hadn’t been out of the train station for more than five minutes when some tall Japanese guy winked at me, and the women all gave us this appraising look. It wasn’t too bad, especially when I spoke Japanese—they seemed to ease up then—but on the train back, it was INSANE. There was this fat Japanese woman across from us who literally would NOT STOP STARING AT ME the entire 10 minutes she was on the train with us. I really wanted to tell her she was being rude, but I held back. (There was also a little boy, maybe 2, who asked his dad “WHY IS SHE SO TALL??” He handled it gracefully and told him that everybody’s different, and I just happened to be tall. I wish everybody’s dad had told them that.) And there was one very cute Japanese boy on the train who kept making eyes at both Sarah and I… though he got off before we could talk to him. Ah well. I think Sarah was ready to make a move. (She’s got Yellow Fever even worse than I do.)

Also, I got to pet a cat in the park, and named it “Nyan-chan” (Mr. Meow). It was promptly stared down by a Daschund, “Odoroita Inu-san” (Mr. Angry Dog) who leapt at me, yipping. The owner apologized, I told him I was okay, and the dog gave me one long look before settling into an angry staring contest with Nyan-chan. Nyan-chan won. Whee!

I saw a couple walking in the park today, and it made me feel…sad. Not homesick, just sad.

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THE NEXT MORNING

So I woke up at 5 a.m. bright and early again today, and realized the culprit: the damn windows. Not a single window curtain is drawn. It's the sunlight that's been getting me up regularly all this time. Damn it!

So I pulled the curtains shut, but to no avail: I was wide awake. I lied curled up in bed for a while but it wasn't much use--I ended up getting up around 7 and heading to breakfast at 7:45 (today's was some mystery meat. Don't ask, don't tell, don't understand.)

And so I get over to campus and the door to Aoi Hall is locked. I could theoretically go into Kitsutsuki ("Woodpecker"), the coffee shop whose wireless I'm currently leeching, but I don't have any cash after yesterday and the bank ATMs don't open until 9. In fact, I might give my folks a call early today. Off I go!