Friday, November 28, 2008

Shosenkyo Gorge

Last Sunday we took a trip here. Go on, click on the link, just to see the photos. Then you can come straight back and continue reading this post. I'll wait...

waiting...

still waiting...

Done it yet?

OK, so you would have seen that the photos are very beautiful and make you wonder what sort of colour enhancement feature they used in Photoshop. They say that the best time of year to go is late October to mid November. We went on the 23rd of November, so we only missed the "best" window by a week. Here's a snippet of what we saw (and I promise that none of these photos have been enhanced at all):













Pretty noice, hey?

***** ****** *****

To get to Shosenkyo Gorge from Numazu, take the Shizuoka train to Fuji, and then another train from Fuji to Kofu. Buses leave outside Kofu station to the gorge. There are more details about the buses (and trains) on that website I posted a link to.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Lions and tigers and bears

Going through this blog I realise that I forgot to mention an outing we took a couple of months ago to Fuji Safari Park. I'd include a link to the website except it's all in Japanese. Anyway, a picture tells a thousand words, so here are a few:


Ummm.....


Oookaaaay......


Are lions perhaps the most impressive animals on the planet?


That's a piece of fruit at the end of a giant pair of tongs. Craig's hand was at the other end.


Now WE did it the fun way. The poor suckers who drive through this place not only are not allowed to open their windows or get out of their cars, but they're not even allowed to stop and drink in whatever spectacle happens to be before them (lucky they don't have to pay extra to drive through).




It's a hard life!


Are meerkats perhaps the funniest animals on the planet?


Can't get away from 'em even in Japan! Well, I guess no-one in Australia wants albino kangaroos anyway.


The quintessential Japanese scene in the background... with some quintessential Australiana in the foreground.

So, how do you get to Fuji Safari Park from Numazu? You take the Kozu train to Gotemba, and from there a bus right to the front door of the zoo. The train takes about half an hour and the bus takes about 45 minutes (from memory -- sorry, it was a while ago now).

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Gimme another layer

Japan has a passionate but destructive and entirely codependent relationship with packaging. Especially plastic packaging. It drives me insane, but I keep forgetting to learn how to say "no bag thanks" and most of the time the checkout person has already wrapped something up before I've even noticed.

Example: Yesterday I bought a whole bunch of groceries at the supermarket that included two packets of fried tofu. This tofu was packaged in air and watertight plastic wrapping. And yet the checkout woman still felt it necessary to wrap them in a second plastic bag before putting them in my shopping bag (which was a reuseable cloth bag, but only because I brought my own).

Another example: Recently I bought a new toothbrush. It came in a cardboard-backed plastic bubble package. At the checkout it was wrapped in another layer of plastic all by itself.

Another example, although admittedly not involving quite as much plastic: Within our first week of being here we bought a couple of kitchen pots. The pots and lids were individually wrapped in plastic, which then went in cardboard boxes, which were then wrapped in paper, which were then carefully placed in large thick paper bags with handles for us to take home. And just in case the paper bag suddenly popped open and embarrassingly spilled its contents on the ground in a public place, the paper bag was sealed shut with a piece of sticky tape.

Favourite example: A while ago I bought cotton buds. A pack of 200, which came in 8 individually wrapped packs of 25. So that's already two layers of plastic between the cotton buds and the outside world. At the checkout? You guessed it, another individual plastic bag before going in the main (plastic) shopping bag.

GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

And then to accomodate this excessive use of petroleum byproducts, the country has devised an elaborate and time-consuming waste disposal system that requires strict adherence to the rules to actually work. Remember this post?

Now before you go and tell me all your anecdotes about checkout people in Australia (and elsewhere) who like to put anything used to clean things in a separate plastic bag before putting it in the main shopping bag, regardless of how well its primary package, bottle, wrapping or other confinement does the job of holding it in, I already know. All I'm saying is, Japan has turned packaging into a cultural phenomenon.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

The things you take for granted

You know what I have come to love about Australia? The money is colourful. There's no chance of mistaking a $5 note for a $10 or a $20 because one's pink, another is blue and the other is orange. And they're noticeably different sizes too, just in case you are stupid (or colourblind).

I don't know if there are any other countries that do that. Japan certainly doesn't.

And because I am stupid, I have on three different occasions handed over a 10,000 yen note with a few coins for something that cost between 1000 and 1500 yen. Good thing the Japanese are so polite they don't point out your dumbness (and so honest they don't take advantage of you).

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

I've made a friend!

AND what's more, I've discovered that there are play groups ALL OVER Numazu that are run all day every day for FREE!!

So at last week's kids' activity in the park I met another woman, L. Her situation is similar to mine; her husband has a job here in Japan and she's stuck at home with her toddler son, looking for stuff to do. She's from Laos (Laotian?) but speaks English well and her husband is American. They've been in Numazu since earlier this year and in Japan for longer. Anyway, L knew a lot more of the ropes around here than I did, and told me about a play group called Poppo right near the train station. We made a date to go there together, and that happened yesterday.

Poppo was cooooooool. A nice big room with heaps of different toys and activities for little kids to play around with at their leisure. Twice in the day they have music and dancing followed by story time - in Japanese of course. I can hardly believe that a) this sort of thing is available all over the place totally free and b) I knew nothing about it until now. But hey! It's great, and I will definitely be going back.

***** ***** *****
Location of Poppo for anyone googling playgroups in Numazu: On the fourth floor of the building next to Lawson (the convenience store) on the left immediately south of Numazu station. The building is on the corner of that block for added reference. If you use the main elevators, Poppo will greet you enthusiastically as soon as the doors open. The main elevators are well inside the building though, so you have to go for a little walk around the corridor to find them. Poppo is open every day of the week except Wednesday, from 10:00 a.m. til 5:00 p.m.