Adventurasia Community

Our first destination was Nagoya to meet my friend Mayumi and her newly wed husband Toshiki. They came to the station to pick us up. Toshiki drove us to the Nagoya-jo Castle. It was late afternoon and the place was closed, so we headed back to their place for dinner. Mayumi has an impressive traditional Japanese mansion. We had suki-yuki (hot pot) and drank beer. We stayed upstairs and slept on one of those bamboo mat beds.

The next morning June 11th, we went to Nagashima Spaland amusement park. They have the world’s highest, fastest, and longest roller coaster, the steel dragon. (Editor: I’m not too sure about that as I thought the roller coaster in Fuji Q Highland is longer and faster, especially the new one that has a 90 degree incline/decline for 70 metres and reaches speeds of up to 170 kilometres per hour - but what do I know?) Luckily for us, it was a weekday and there weren’t that many people. We were only there for 3 hours and rode on most rides several times. Mayumi went shopping at a nearby mall while we played.

Late afternoon, we went to Nagoya Port for sight-seeing and to pick up Toshiki from work. There’s a marine aquarium and small fair nearby. For dinner, we went to a restaurant with Mayumi, Toshiski, Mayumi’s father and stepmother. We had lots of traditional Japanese food, sake and beer. The sashimi was so fresh; that the fish was still twitching when I ate it.

June 12th, World Cup game day (England vs Nigeria). We had breakfast with Mayumi at a fast food Japanese place. After saying bye to Mayumi at the Nagoya station, Andre and I headed off to our Ryokan (hostel) in Kyoto to drop off our bag before going to the game. Getting to Osaka stadium was somewhat confusing, but luckily there’s a World Cup information booth at every station to help us and other tourist around during World Cup month. Unfortunately the person that helped us at the booth wasn’t too helpful in giving directions. I asked a nearby Japanese girl for directions. She not only told us where to go, she walked us to our gate and made sure we went in the right direction. Hmm I can see this as an easy way to meet Japanese girls.

The atmosphere on the train heading to Osaka stadium was rowdy. Walking out of the station towards the stadium was amazing. It was filled with cheerful people, streets lined with jersey/souvenir and beer seller. Just outside of the stadium, there were thousands of dressed up die-hard English fans. It was going to be just like an England home game. In the spirit of things, I bought a jersey for 4000 Yen. (Editor: I wonder what happened to all those hooligans?)

We sat right behind the goaltender during the game. England was well supported by the numerous fans that flew in for the event. They were chanting their song through out the game. During halftime, it was a frenzy to buy beer. People were pushing and shoving to get to the front of the line. Actually most of them were English as few Japanese even attempted because of the likelihood to be crushed in the crowd.

The game ended in a 0-0 tie. I thought it was a boring game. Just outside the stadium, hundreds of police lined the outskirts of the stadium. The Japanese seemed too conservative to cause any sort of trouble, so my guess is that the police were looking out for foreign hooligans (Editor: actually it turns out in the final tally that more Japanese people caused problems than the foreigners!). Actually, if this type of atmosphere existed in America or Europe, there would likely to be a riot.

The next morning, we went around Kyoto. Kyoto is known for it’s numerous temples. To us, if we’ve seen one temple, we’ve seen it all. We bought a bus pass that took us around the city. The pass included a map and a route for the four walking tours. We only did one of the walking tour and saw around ten different temples. The walking tour was nice, it took us through a traditional neighborhood and some parks. In the afternoon, we took a tour of the imperial palace. We were lucky since it’s only open to foreign tourist. Locals can only visit it on certain days of the year. The palace is like the temples so we weren’t too interested in it.

After the long hot day of walking, we went back to our Ryokan to get ready to meet my friend for dinner. The ryokan did not have hot water, so I decided to give public bathes a try (went by myself). There were several bathes around as it is a common social gathering for Japanese. I went on doing my own business.

We meet up with my friend, Kaori, at Kyoto station. For dinner, we went for pizza and pasta. After dinner, we met up with another friend, Jacky. Jacky took us three to the nightlife district of Kyoto. We went to a restaurant to have some Motoyaki and drink beer. Kaori left after drinking. Us three boys decided to walk around. There were hostess lined up on the streets trying to pull us into their bar to drink with them. It was pretty tempting but we just continued on.

June 14th, Japan vs Tunisia. We knew today’s Japan game was going to take up the whole day (even though it starts at 3:30pm) so there were no plans for sightseeing. We checked out of the Ryokan and went to Osaka station to drop off our bags in the locker. We continued to Osaka stadium. The atmosphere was even crazier than the England’s game. Japan did surprisingly well in the games so far, thus a tie here would guarantee a spot in the 2nd round. At least 90% of the fans were dressed in team color. Tickets were going for a minimum of 5 times face value but of course this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to watch Japan play at home during World Cup. The first half of the game was boring. I was probably the only person in Japan to doze off during this game. The beer rush during half time was much more pleasant than the England game. There weren’t too many people buying beer and they were more polite than the English crowd. Japan scored two goals in the second half of the game for a 2-0 win. Everyone was yelling and cheering. Outside the stadium, people gathered in groups to chant and dance to their soccer song. After taking several pictures of the fans, we headed off to Namba to walk around. Around 9 pm we took a bus to Tokushima to spend the weekend with my friend Sandy. We slept through the two hours ride and Sandy picked us up at the bus station.

The next morning, June 15th, Sandy, Andre, Sean and I went to a dye museum. After, we went to the countryside, which was nice since we’ve been staying at the big cities so far in the trip. We walked around to get some fresh air and played some badminton. At night, Sandy took us to watch Awa Odori Dance. It’s a popular traditional dance in Tokushima (Editor: I believe they have this same dance in Koenji during the summer time. ). During the performance, they invited audience to dance with them. Sandy made us dance with them. Near the end of the show, the MC invited us back up on stage for a round of applause. The MC asked us questions which we didn’t understand. Some people laughed but it was a good experience for us. While driving out of the parkade after the show, Sandy’s car tire popped. None of us was able to pry the nuts out of the bolts and had to call AAA for assistance. It was during closing time for the parkade but the parking attendants were nice and stayed with us. In fact, one of the attendant’s wife came by and allowed us to use her AAA assistance credit so that we wouldn’t be charge for the service. After the misfortunate mishap, we headed home for beer and some take-out takoyaki.

On June 16th, we woke up to Sandy’s grandma cooking. Grandma was one of the nicest person that I’ve ever meet, more on that later. In the afternoon, we took a boat cruise to see whirlpool. Apparently Tokushima is known for their huge whirlpool. After, we had coffee at a Canadian cabin coffee house. It’s the most expensive coffee place that I’ve been to; coffee was around $12 Cdn per cup. At night, we hang out with Sandy’s cousin playing Monopoly and more drinking.