The Eye of Patrick

The next day I would wake up early, as I wanted to get a jump on the day. This meant waking up at 8 am. I got dress and was out of the hotel by 9 am.

While I was walking to Namba station to pick up my camera I noticed a barber shop. This got me thinking about getting a haircut as my hair had grown fairly long by this point, as I had not gotten one done in the 3 months I have been here. So when I noticed the barber shop I decided to make the effort and get my haircut.

I went down the stairs and enter the barber shop. It was a small little shop with 3 chairs, nothing fancy just the basic minimum that you would find at any barber shop, except this one was in Japan. I said hello and he said sit down and he asked me what I wanted done. I explained that to him and he got cutting.

After he finished cutting, he asked if I wanted a shave. I thought about it for a moment, as I had never gotten a shave done in a barber shop. I had always wanted to get it done, but usually I had shaved myself before the haircut. But seeing I left my shaving kit in Hokakido and knowing I was going to my university that day to meet my friends I made sure to look my best.

The process to get shaved was as followed, first he lowered me back and I think he put gel on my face and then hot towels and then more gel and started cutting. It was a nice shave and he got places I couldn’t. The interesting one was he trimmed my ears, now it is not like I have much hair their anyways but it trimmed it away. So after I was finished being cut, I felt smooth like a baby and knew I was starting my day right.

The next thing for me to do was to go to the train station and get my camera. When I got there they told me that I had to wait an hour for my camera to arrive from the station that someone returned it to. Instead of waiting there, I decided to go to Mr. Donut and get some breakfast (not the healthiest breakfast I know) and something to drink. Plus I wanted to read my book by Haruki Murakami. He is a Japanese author that I have been reading lately, whenever I open his book I get so caught up in his world that when I check the time usually 30 minutes would have passed. I did that until 11 and made my way back to the train station.

I got my camera and was on my way to Kansai Gaidai. I took the Keihan line to Hirakatashi. The whole journey there was a surreal feeling as the last time I was on this train was two years ago and I was in school in Japan. So as I passed places I used to go to I felt memories flash back into my head, some of them good and some of them bad. In roughly 15 minutes I was there in Hirakatashi, my old town. (Not really town, I think it was 400,000 people, but you wouldn’t notice it was a separate city from Osaka do to all the development along the train line)

When I got to the gate of the university I had a sudden sense of panic as I worried they would not let me in, that they would say you can’t enter, only current students can. But I hide my fear and cross the threshold and entered the university. It was the same as when I was last there.

I made my way around the many booths set up selling food. One of the major things about the festival is that the many clubs or circles in the school sell some food. The club I used to be a member of, the golf team was selling Yakisoba. (Yakisoba is fried noodles with sauces and vegetables, kind of like a stir fry with noodles) so I made my way there to see my old friends and to get some good lunch. I casually walked up to the golf stand and pretended to be just another customer. But they noticed me and we started to catch up. It was amazing to see how much the club had changed since I left. Many of the members I knew had left or graduated from the team. So there were many new faces. I met them, but waited to meet the person I had meant to see.

I waited 30 minutes for her to come, she was super busy. Not only is she helping with the golf club selling stuff, but she was helping to run the festival, which is a major undertaken. This is not a amateur festival. My festival had the proper yakisoba cooking equipment and other clubs also had the stuff that you would find in a normal restaurant for the food they were selling. I only had 10 minutes to talk to her; she had grown up a lot since I last saw her. I think she will do really well in life because she seems a very strong personality and speaks excellent English. I will remain in contact with her for sure. I took some photos with the members and said good-bye.

The reason I could not spend more time with them was because I was meeting another friend. We became friends in Japanese class when I studied there. It is kind of funny also how we became friends. She was one of the Japanese students to come to my Japanese language class to give us an opportunity to speak with Japanese people. We were usually given a set group of questions to act as starting points for our conversation. So when my friend became my speaking partner one of the questions was “do you want to have lunch?” so when she asked me it I was not expecting to actually eat lunch but just have an opportunity to speak Japanese. But we talk more and more and when class ended she was like where do you want to eat, and it was at that point I realized we were actually going to eat lunch together.

So when I came back to Osaka, I made sure I would meet her. We met up and looked around at some of the events and took some photos of the place. Then it was out of there, as much as I liked my university, it was not the school that made my time in Japan the good memories it was. The good memories came from the stuff I did outside of the university.

So my friend and I decided to check out fushimi inari in Kyoto. It is the pictures to the right of the many tori’s. Usually when you go to a temple there will be 1 or 2 of them, but this place is just a long series of them. I think it has been in a large number of movies, such as last samurai and memories of a geisha (sayori). I had always wanted to go here, but I have never had the opportunity to go. So seeing I could not see the temples in Kyoto as a result of me losing my camera, I thought I would check out something new and I was not disappointed at all. It had that wow and amazement that comes with visiting something new for the first time. Each step I took was something new to see. I like the feeling as it is so hard to get, as once you saw something the magic of the first time is gone. Maybe that is why I don’t watch movies more then once usually.

After we went to the temple we headed to an izakaya and had some food. The whole izakaya experience has started to grow on me, at first I was not a fan of them. But now I like the concept of getting a drink with friends and trying a bunch of little food. So me and my friend sat at the izakaya and chatted for 4 hours or so. It was some of the happiest moments I have experienced since returning to Japan. I have met many people here and it is nice. But it is nice to sit down with someone you know and knows you. You don’t need to explain yourself; you can just talk and discuss things to deeper degree then new friends.

We both had to say good-bye as we wanted to make sure to not miss the last train, it was sad saying good-bye but at the same time it was nice to catch up with an old friend.

This past weekend was a long weekend in Japan and as a result I took an extra holiday to make it a 4 day holiday for me. The reason was that I was going to go to Osaka to see Kansai Gaidai, it was the school that I studied at while I was on exchange before in Japan. They were also having a festival, which was another reason for my visit.

The journey to Osaka started with me catching a bus ride from one of the high school teachers to Sapporo. He was heading in the direction of Sapporo and said he could give me a drive. This was helpful in saving me some money in transportation costs.

I was going to stay in Sapporo for the night and catch the early flight to Osaka to maximize my time, as it was impossible to get from Shimokawa to Chitose airport to catch a 10 o’clock flight if I left the morning of the flight.

While in Sapporo I met up with my predecessor and we swapped stories about our lives in Shimokawa. I asked him for advice about some of the issues I faced in my life here.

After that I headed back to my hotel and went to sleep, as when I am excited for something I have difficulty sleeping and I didn’t want to feel exhausted when I got to Osaka.

The next day would come and I would head to the airport and try to check in. But not before I realized I had forgotten my ticket. I kept my cool and thought it would not be a problem and that they could issue a new ticket. So I went to the ticket section and explained my problem. She listened and started typing away at her computer, at times I thought it was good and then it went bad. She said “sorry we do not have enough information to locate your reservation” and I was starting to get really worried I might not make it. But then another person asked me, what time was your flight at. Before I had said 11:50, but then I thought maybe it was the 10:50 flight and she did her search and found my ticket. So I escaped the dread of losing something for one more moment, but this trend of losing things would continue through my trip as you will see.

I would get on my flight and arrive in Osaka at around 1:15 pm. I was in a hurry to get to the city and start having fun. So when I saw a local train I hopped on and kept going. But down the line I saw an express train and decided to switch. But it seems in my desire to make the faster train I had forgotten my new digital SLR. I was in panic mode that I thought I could switch back to the previous local train and find it. I did that, and still I could not find the camera, so I went to the station masters office at Namba station and explained my situation. All he could do was bring out a sheet of paper that told me that they would know if they had it by tomorrow at lunch and give me another paper with the number to call.

After losing my camera, my level of happiness dropped greatly and my happy experience in Osaka was not looking so happy. I made my way to the hotel and checked in and hopped on a trip to get to Kyoto to meet up with some friends I had agreed to meet. They were doing the temple thing, and as I had seen Kyoto before I was not as inclined to join them. But one thing about Kyoto that makes me happy each time is the Wendy’s they have, I think every time I go there I make sure to have a meal there, The spicy chicken combo is heaven.

With my fast food fix out of the way I met up with my friends and we went to a restaurant and had dinner. I think we had Japanese style steak. The steaks here are razor thin compared to the steaks I had back home in Alberta or Brazil. But it was a satisfying meal and we headed to a sports bar and played some pool before calling it a night. But that was not before my trip would continue to throw surprises in my way. It was in Kyoto that I had gotten on a express train for Osaka or I thought, but half way it stopped and I had to switch to a local train and then switch back to a high speed train. This made my 48 minute journey a 1h 30 minutes and made me get home at 12:30 am.

The next day was fairly uneventful, except for the fact that I went to Nara and went to Tōdai-ji (東大寺). I had been there before, but I wanted to go there and get my fortune told before I called to see if they had my camera. I am not a superstitious person, but I was nervous and thought that if I got a good fortune, that somehow provide certainty in them having my camera. So when I got my fortune and it mentioned that I would find something I lost in the most unlikely place. I knew they had it, and when I called them they had it. It was from that moment on that my trip improved. (Continue next post)

so my second post in two days, i am now on the boat trip back to the mainland and back to hanoi. it has been a fun and interesting experience that i have had the last two days. yesterday i woke up at 7 am because they decided to turn off the power to our fans and the temperature here has been plus 27 to 35 and very humid, so you can imagine that the room got very hot and humid quickly. so i had to get out of my bed and look forward to breakfast, the dinner the night before had not agreed with me so i was suffering as a result, so i did not eat the eggs or any boiled stuff, i just kept it to the toast. i realized may be it was a combination of the greesy food, large quantiy of soda drinks, and heat that combined to equal a killer force hehe….

but back to the trip, so after lunch we swiched to a smaller boat as we were going further into the waters and the big boat was going to go on another over nite trip. but we were switching to a hotel that evening so we did not require the large facalities. the boat took us to Cat ba island, it is the only populated island in halong bay, about half of cat ba island was declared a national park in 1986. when we got to the island we started walking, at first i thought this was the hike hehe, but i learnt about 30 minutes into the walk that it was the pre-hike hehe, we still were walking towards the point where we will start our hike. the screenry around us was beautiful, we had lagoos that were green and blue and the trees were lush green filled with the sounds of birds and other animals that populated the forst. but there was also a human presences there, to make the trip to the trekk place easier for people to get to they have decided to make a path made of stone, so while we were hiking they were drilling into a mountain and using that stone to make the road.

we finally got to the town that was located on the island, it was a small town and our tourguide told us that it was so poor of a town that the government had took up a collection to use the money to increase the standard of living in the region, they had built houses for the people and provided other monies for the community. this was nice to see.

the town was very small probably less then 200 people, their main industries were fishing and tourism. even though tourism was a major part of their industry they were some of the most kind people i have met on my travels in asia. it was around 11 am when we got there and the tour guide asked us whether we would like to go hike up a mountain, he told us it would be difficult as it had rained the night before and the ground was slippery, but i thought to myself i was in vietnam and i will probably only come here once for a long time, so i should enjoy everything as much as i can, so i decided to go on the tour and enjoy the climb. at first it was fairly easy and i thought to myself “what was he talking about this is not hard” but as we were climbing we ran into other tour guides and they told us that as we climb it would be more difficult to climb. i wanted to quit but everyone else did not want to, so i decided to continue on because i knew i would regret quiting later. so i countined climbing. near the top it got really difficult as it got more and more vertical. but finally after a hour or so we reached the time. the view was not that amazing, but that was ok as i did not climb the mountain for the view but for the experience of saying i had done it. but the view was great too, we were at the highest hill in the region and so we could see out to the entire island chain, and it was just picture perfect. as picture perfect as it was, we still needed to get down quickly as the other people who had not completed the climb were waiting in the village and we had to return for lunch.

so the way down was much more of a challenge then going up as the grown was slippery and as you were going down it would slip and the only directions that you could go were forward and backwards, and as a result of my poor footwear i did slip a few times. but the tour guide was funny, he said that in vietnam instead of asking how many times you fell they would ask you how many frogs you got, whether this was true or not, i got 3 frogs hehehe…. at first i did not think it would hurt, but that was not until the second day were it hurt.

the lunch in village was nice, except for the fact that it had been the same meal that we have been having for the last 3 days, and the same one that i have had on previous tours. so the flavour was loosing the enjoyment that it had before, plus i was not feeling to great so i could only eat the rice and some pinapple, so i did not feel to great. i talked with the two new people that i had met on the tour, the ones i talked about in my previous post, they were kind and stuff. we talked about fav. childhood tv shows hehe, it was interesting to see that in australia and canada and singapore that we all grew up on the same programs, though be it they may have been in different languages hehe….

after lunch we had to make our way back to the boat, we decided to walk back instead of taking the moterbikes, this was not a great idea hehe as i did not estimate the time it would take to reach the boat, i had thought it would only be like 10-20 minutes, but the combination of the mountain and the food and weather made the hike feel like a 2 hour hike hehe, near the end the end looked so near, but at the same time it was so far.

though the walk was long, it was a good experience as it gave me good time to talk to my tour guide, me and him had become good friends by that point. so we talked about our respective lives and he told me about his education and his family. he had a son that was only 1 year old. when my friend asked to see the picture, he said that it was vietnam custom not to take pictures of a child until he was atleast one year old, if you took pictures before that day then the child would not have a good future. which was interesting to know, and probbly good to know as then i knew not to take pictures of little kids hehe….

the boat then took us to the water, were we had the choice of going kayaking or swimming for a few hours. i chose to do both, first i got in the kayak and rowed to one of the little island and landed on a beach. the beach was very small may be 5 meters squared. but it was like your own private beach, and so i took advantage of it. i went for a swim, and floated in the water, held me breath to see how long i could stay in the water and did hand stands in it. also the cut on my feet got better as the water was salt water, so it helped to make things better. it was funny though, as i was rowing around i had took off my glasses , in the case i did fall in, i did not want ot loose them. but i could not see as a result, so when i was rowing i could see a boat and a line running along the water, and thought to myself that may be it was a fishing boat, it turns out it was, and i could have ran into a net hehe, that would have been a cultural experience that i would not have expected to feel.

after we all returned to the boat, we set sail for cat ba island, where we would spend one night. it was around 4 pm so the sun was not as bright, may be it was 5 i am not sure, but either way it was beautiful the water. the sun was going down and it was glimmering across the water, it was just the perfect image to end my boat trip.

i truely enjoyed my boat trip on the island, it was a once in a life time experience for me, as i had never slept on a boat and doubt i will do it again. the people i met on the boat were nice and kind people, though it took a while to get to know them, but when i did they were friendly and kind. the tour guide was seriously one of the most kind tour guides i have met in my life. when we were returning to ha noi he was so sweet and wished us and our family and friends a good life, i have heard this speech from many tour guides but he was the first one that i felt truely meant it. may be the food did not agree with me and i am still suffering as a result of it, but it was worth the experience, the pain is now, but as time passes you will be only left with the positive meomories. so here is to ha long bay, one of the teasures of vietnam, if you get the chance you should go there and stay in ha long bay, book it with ODC travel as they are a honest tour company.

take care,
love patrick
ps my father is here in hanoi!

hello,

firstly i decided to restart my journaling hehe, i got so caught him in not writting about the past that it seemed as a result i did not write about the present. so as a result, once i get back to canada i will do journal posting for china, but at the moment i will continue from where i am.

at the moment i am on a boat in ha long bay in vietnam, i decided to go on the tour as i was getting tired of the city of hanoi and i wanted a break to the country side. so i signed up for a 2 nite 3 day trip, the first nite, which is tonite we will sleep on a boat. then tomorrow we will stay in a hotel, i am not really sure what we will do hehe, the main reason that i signed up for this tour was i got the chance to sleep on a boat. i have never had the chance to do it in the past and i doubt i would get such a chance in the future, and it only costed 67 dollars for the whole trip, that includes all meals, entrance fees, transportation, accomdations, the only thing it does not cover is drinks. which is ok as even with the mark up the price of a coca-cola is less then a dollar.

so today i woke up at 6 something as i was worried i would miss the tour, but being vietnam, when you wake up early the tour is late and when you wake up late the tour is early hehe. so i had about a hour to kill before the actual tour came and i was not too happy about my hotel so i got to spend the first 20 minutes bitching about it. the first nite the AC did not work and so i asked for a fan, and they said they would fix it. the next day they could not fix it and i had to switch rooms, so then i said i paided for a AC room and i did not get it the first night, and he said but you did not say anything, i then went on how i had to wake up 7 flights of stairs atleast twice to get the fan and that even though his service was great, the room was not as advertised. then he said something about if he gave discount then he would have to pay for it, so i said then can i talk to the manager, and he said well your room is cheap 12 usd, so i can’t go any lower, but i can give you VAT (value added tax) off, so i will save like 15 percent, so i knew it was best to accept that and we moved along.

then just as i was about to give up on my tour, the tour guide came and picked us up, first we had to take a smaller bus to a place located outside of the city of hanoi as large buses are not able to enter hanoi during the day. when we got on to the second bus more people joined our tour and we were off, since arriving in china i have become used to long distance travel and this was 3 hours, so i just spaced out for that time, i can not even remember now what i thought about. but 3 hours later and one stop at a tourist rest stop we were at ha long bay. the bay was like vietnam, crowded and unorganized, so many people waiting to get on the many different types of boats. finally we got on our boat and we were off.

we first took the boat out a little ways to put our anker (sp?) down and have lunch. oh firstly because i am traveling alone, i get my own room and washroom, it is a nice set up except that there is no AC and i have only a fan for a couple hours at the nite hehe, but it is a nice room. i will show pictures later, it is great as i can go to the toliet and look out at the bay, i think it is the best view from a toliet in my life hehe.

but we started our lunch, i decided to say i would not eat seafood, just thought that it would be the safest as not all seafood agrees with me and i did not want to risk getting sick. so instead i got tofu in tommaotes hehe and fried eggs, and i ate the other meat dishes, which was nice, but i think the humidty combined with the hot temperature and the lack of cold drinks made for a horrible situation, where i got sick a little. so i did not eat as much as i usually do, but that is ok hehe i need to loose weight anyhow.

after lunch we continued on to a cave, it was a typical limestone cave, which i have seen many times in the past. but it was still amazing to see, looking at the cave and thinking of how long it would take to form the thing was astounding. the tour guide said it took approx 500 million years to discouver and that the cave was not opened till 1992, this was different then other caves that had been used during the vietnam war and were carved for that use. this cave was as natural as it could be. they had one rock that looked like a male body part and the tour guide started to make suggustive noises hehe, which was akward hehe, but still funny.

then we returned to the boat and sailed into the bay and settled down for the nite and i hung out on the top of the boat, i was too shy to talk to other people so i finished a book and studied my japanese, plus got started on some of my postcards. but i was getting lazy and tired so i could not study japanese so i decided to take my computer out and download my pictures and then finally one of the other tourist noticed and asked about it, and i showed her some of my pictures. i was finally happy to have that ice broken and now i can talk more freely, the light was getting dark so everyone went inside to read and such. i noticed her and another girl playing backgammon and asked if they were and they asked if i wanted to join and i decide. it had been ages since i played last so i was rusty at first, but once we got going i started to pick up steam and as a result was doing well, that being until dinner was served.

i am the odd person out, so i have to sit at the table of 3, during lunch the people who are all from denmark ignored me and as a result i felt out of place, and was not looking forward to dinner. but then after the meal was over they started to talk to me, you know asking all the travelers questions, where you from, where you going and where have you been, which was good as it provided a start fo rmore discussion. they asked about japan and if they ate sushi all the time hehe, i think that is the most common question about japan hehe, i said yes they eat sushi, but they have many other type of foods that are just as yummy. i also shared a bottle of red wine with them, which was nice as i had not had a good glass of wine in ages, as the wine in china was strange and burnt my throat hehe….

after dinner we retired to another table to play a game of cards, the typical game of having the higher card and playing it before somoene else could play a higher card. i was exhausted so i was not that sharp and only finished around the middle rank compared to other people, which was fine hehe….

the people on my tour are nice, i am getting used to superfical converstation, and not asking people for their e-mail, as i realized i have enough of a problem e-mailing the people i know, i don’t need to be adding more people hehe…. except if i meet someone i want to be friends with for a while.

i will go to sleep now, i must wake up early tomorrow.

take care,

love patrick

Hello,

I know I have not been updating my journal lately, but blame it on the fact I am lazy and the lack of internet access. But that is a good thing as it means i am out there enjoying myself. I will try to update my whole trip based on the places.

June 4th - Beijing -

I arrive in Beijing from my flight from Tokyo, it was on ANA. Wow i must say that is one of the best airlines I have flown in my life hehe. May be that is the result of living in Canada and having a horrible carrier like Air Canada. But this airline was amazing, they had the little TVs on the back of the seats and you could start and stop the movie and games, this is something that even Air Canada’s Business class does not have always.

I arrive in Beijing and I meet a kid from Norway, we talk for a bit on the way to the hostel. This was an interesting experience as we both had come off full year exchanges, his was in China and mine in Japan. After our talk I realized how happy i was to go to Japan as the quality of his program was not that great, and this was a comment that i heard from many different people who went to China on exchange. I met my friends from Kanasai Gaidai that i was planning to see, and we did a short walk around Beijing before going to bed.

Beijing - Day 2 -

I decided that it was best that i woke up early, so i set my alarm for 8 am thinking it would be a good time to wake up and see the sights of Beijing. But i am staying in hostels and as a result the person who was staying in my dorm was snoring. I have heard snoring before and this was the loudest ever, it sounded like a freight train going by, so i tossed and i turned until i had to turn on my music to sleep and I was able to get to sleep another 1 hour until 7ish, at what point I decided to just wake up and go see the sights.

I headed towards tiananmen square to see the square, Mao’s body and the forbidden city. The square has been marked in western view of China ever since 1989 and the day I went was the 15th annivasary of it. But the square is really not that special, it is a wide open space that stretches for a long while and has a lot of government offices and such. But really nothing amazing, but I went and lined up for the Mao’s tomb as it was something i wanted to do. The line was not too long, but as i was waiting in line a chinese man come up to me and directed me to get out of line as i had to put my bags away, while getting pulled out of line, i met another womeon there who was from England. We talked as we put our stuff in to storage, but the guy demanded money and she opened her wallet and he took out 100 yuen and ran, which is like 15 dollars, i felt bad so i agreed to pay half of it, but still it was not good experience. Though he did help us move up in line, so it was not totally bad.

Then we went and saw Mao’s Body, it was an eery experience, as I think this was the first time in my life I had seen a dead body before and to see all these chinese people walk by was strange as many of them had flowers. Me and my friend thought that was strange as it looked like they just resold them, and later my chinese friends agree. But Mao’s body looked like he was plastic, he did not look real anymore. When you look at him, it is hard to imagine all the things he has done, he was responsible for the birth of modern china, and he did many bad things, and there he was right in front of me. But we could not take pictures. I think if you are in Beijing and visit Tinanmen square you should make a trip to Mao and see it, it does not take too long.

I will stop here, and cont next time with Forbidden city,

sorry for no pictures yet,
take care,
Patrick

Today was a special day for me, it was one of those days that I wanted to happen since i came to Japan. That was to see a soccer (football) game in Japan. When i was trying to decide on coming to Japan i went and researched places i wanted to visit and see. You know the historical stuff and so on. But seeing Osaka Gamba play was also part of that list. Since i have lived in Brazil i have gained a never ending love for the game of soccer. So as my time at Kansai Gaidai was ending and I had yet to see a full soccer game, i was starting to worry I would not get that chance. Then for some reason unknown to me i was reading a magazine called Kansai Scene, it is a magazine about what is happening in the Kansai area and one of the stories they had was on J-Leguge and specifically Osaka vs Osaka. Osaka has two teams, Osaka Gamba and Osaka Cruezuro, and atleast a few times a year they meet up and have the Osaka derby. So I thought to myself as I read that article, may be i should go to this game, so then i went around and asked people if they wanted to go. At first many people were excited about it and wanted to go, but as the days reached nearer and people realized how much they had slacked off during the semester they begun to hesitate about going to the game.

So the day of the game, today, people were dropping like flys and at first i was blue and thought may be i wont go. But then i realized that seeing this soccer game was one of the major things i wanted to do while i was in Japan, so i would be a chicken if i did not go. So i packed my bags and waved off to my suitemates and friends who had decided to stay back and “study” and headed out on my journy. It was a long train ride to go from Hirakatashi to Nagai Satidum. I left at 2 and on the way to the stadium i saw many people covered in either blue and black jerseys (Osaka Gamba) or pink and blue. The good thing about Japan atleast is that i felt totally safe going to a game in my jersey at another teams stadium. I do not know If i would have done the same had i been in Brazil, where violence is alot more common. But people were friendly, when they saw me wearing Gamba Osaka jersey they smiled at me and were so friendly that it made me feel happy.

My next problem when i got to the stadium was that i did not have a ticket hehe, and i had no idea where to buy a ticket hehe, so at first i walked around aimlessly, until I thought it was may be a wiser idea to go and ask someone where to buy a ticket. I went up to one of the booth selling stuff for the game and in my shy japanese I asked where i could buy the tickets. She told me to go to the right and it would be on my right hehe and when i went in that direction it turned out to be correct. So i went up to the gate and asked to buy a ticket, i wanted one of the cheap tickets, but she told me they were all soldout for the Gamba Osaka side and i could sit with the home team, which i did not want to do. So i decided to upgrade from a 20 dollar ticket to a 35 dollar ticket so i could sit with my team. I think that was a good choice as i had a blast sitting with them.

I went to my section and sat down, and the people next to me started talking to me, he was a friendly guy and we talked about where i was from and how long I was in japan. I told him my history and such. But my Japanese was very limited and his english was even more limited. So we were only able to make a short chat before we stopped talking. But it was perfect timing really as the game just started as we ran out of topics to say.

The game was fun to watch as each time had 3 non japanese players playing on each time and from the research that i did before the game, they were all Brazilian. When you watched them play and saw how more talented they were compared to the Japanese you realize how powerful Brazil is as a soccer nation, as if these people were unable to play in the Brazilian leguge or in Europe and still be skillful enough to play in Japan and still be good.

This was the first soccer game i had seen in person in a long time. So it was great to be back in the sound of things. I was sitting in the Osaka side of the field and as a result the Ultra’s (the crazy fans) were near me and they were making noises, like singing songs and waving flags. This was very colorful as they were all wearing their jersey and waving. It was funny as we were all put together the Gamba fans so it looked like a sea of blue.

The game was filled with quick passing and some nice shots. The soccer ended up being 4-2, my team won they scored at the very last minute. I was so happy at the end of the game, i felt touched by soccer again. After the game i felt a desire to come back to Osaka so i can buy season tickets hehe.

Hopefully next time, i will speak better japanese and i will have season tickets so i can watch them.

Here is the pictures

Hello,

So the first real day of Korea was the 29th as we were able to have a full nites rest and a chance to explore korea. I was allergic to the smoke in the room so I was awaken by the sore feeling in my throat. Rather then lay in bed and think how death would be much more fun then the smell of smoke i decided to go out in to the streets of korea and explore while i waited for the others to wake up. It is strange how things look different in the morning then they do when you arrive at night. The night before I was dark and quiet, but now it was full of people moving in and about their daily business. The place our hostel was located was an university area, i think within 15 minutes walk you could find the campuses of 3 differnet schools. So as i walked around there was many people who were off to school, many young people.

The first sign I saw was one for a Canadian college that decided to open a branch in Korea to teach english. It was my first time seeing my country name written in hangol the language of korea.

As I walked around I thought it was best that I return to the hostel so that I could regroup with the people that I was going to out and explore the local area. For some reason we were lucky to select a hostel that was located within 10 minute walk of one of the palaces.

The name of it was Changgyeonggung Palace, according to the Seoul Tourism website:

Changgyeonggung Palace was originally built by King Sejong as a
residence for his father, Taejong, and was called Suganggung Palace. It
was renovated and enlarged in 1483 by King Seongjong to be used as a
residence for three dowager queens, at which time the name was changed
to Changgyeonggung. It was also called Donggung, or East Palace along
with Changdeokgung, which stood on the other side of the wall. (These
two palaces played complementary roles.)

This was the entrance to the palace.

The only problem with visiting the palace was that it was in late in March so that everything was still suffering from winter, the plants and grass had not grown back yet. But even though, the beauty of the area was able to shine through. We decided to set a lesiurely pace to walk the area. The handouts they gave us were really not of much use as they did not give to much information on the palace. So i was sadly unable to learn to much about the history of the palace we visited.

As we went into the palace more we ended up on Myeongjeongmun Gate, the guide book did not say much about it, just that it was rebuilt many times. The last being in 1989, during Japanese occupation of Korea they decided to destory this palace. Also they changed the name of the palace in Korean from Palace to that of a Park and decided to build other things around it to diminsh the view of the korean royal family.

Here is a cool shot of my friend Mike taking a picture of us taking a picture of him behind the myeongjeongmun.

Here is the photo of the main entrance, I like this picture a lot as it shows the meeting of Old and the new. The office buildings in the back symbolize the progress Korea has made in such a short time, while the palace is a symbol of the past and all the hardwork that gave way for the modern Korea.

Here are some more pictures of the palace.

This picture below is another 3 people that were part of my travel crew. They are Mike on the left, Josh in the middle and Jimmy on the right. If it were not for the 3 of them I probably would not have set foot on the shores of Korea as i would get to scared hehe. So i was happy that I went to Korea with them. I really like this photo for some reason, they just look so cool in the photo.

While we were walking around the park, we noticed some people playing a game, being the curious Gaijan we are we decided to get in and investigate. As we were watching them we were amazed at how vocal and animated they got regarding the game and then when it was all over they were so happy again. This reminded me of Brazil, where people could be screaming at each other but then go back to being friends so easily.

Here is another of my travelmates, Aisha, she was the only girl on the trip, which made her then one of the guys hehe… she is tired in this picture as we had done a lot of walking that day and she had sat down to take a rest.

The place we went was a large palace so it also had a secret garden, but with our trusty map and the signed that directions, the secret garden was not so a secret after all.

There was also a garden there.

I will end here, so i can have a update, and i will update more soon.

So for my spring break I decided to go to South Korea and see a country that i have long to visit, but never imagined I would get the chance to visit. I love korean food so much, that I was looking forward to it from the day I hatched the plan. So March 21st we setout to Kansai Airport. This was a adventure in itself as we asked our Okasan if she could help us to call, but then we realized we were suppose to call ourselves, we had just failed to read the sign. But when we called, or when I called they started to speak way to fast Japanese that I was unable to understand it. So I handed my cellphone to Okasan and we were finally on our way. It took roughly 1h 30 minutes to get to the airport from Hirakata. Osaka airport is an airport that was built in the middle of a body of water. But when they were building it, they did not do a good job and as a result it has begun to sink, not enough that it will be a probably at the moment, but a problem in the future. Also a problem is that it cost so much to build it that the landing fees are so expensive, so as a result if they have to fix it the airport will become even more expensive.

We checked in and everything was fine, and our flight to Korea was fairly uneventful, they served food and such on the plane, and there was no movies. But then we arrived in Seoul, Inchion airport and our journey was about to begin.

I was very tired from getting ready for Korea that i failed to realize when we were suppose to get off the bus on our way to our hostel. So we accidently went two more stops over then we should, and as a result we were lost in seoul with no direction to go, so some kind Seoul people decided to help us, but the problem was that they were drunk. So we had this middle aged Korean man who was trying to help us, but the problem was that he only spoke korean. That was find as long as there was younger korean male who could translate him. He told us, that the old man had a son, and he wanted us to meet him. Which was nice and everything, but he was highly drunk so we did not know how much truth there was to it. Plus the fact that when we got into a taxi he held the taxi up for 5 minutes while he did something… so the taxi driver was getting mad at us, and we could not say anything to him. So then we finally get to the place near the hostel and he calls our hostel. Which was ok, but the fact was that it was 1 am and we felt bad, and so the lady comes outside to bring us in, but he keeps on blabbering to her and she says he is crazy and many other things in English, which was funny… finally she was able to get him away, and we made our way to the hostel. The hostel was cheap, i think it was only 11 dollars a nite, but it smelled like smoke, which is horrible as i am allergic to tobbaco smoke, so i had difficulty sleeping. But it was cheap and I was finally in korea.

Look forward to day 2 of Korea