I'm In Japan!

17/10/07 - wed
sunny day in Japan

It is already 6.15am (Msia time) in the morning when we arrived in Kansai airport. Japan’s time is one hour earlier so we actually lose one hour when we travel from M’sia to Japan. Local time 7sth we manage to get ourselves in the airport, which is a real long one, at seaside. We just follow the crowd, and then tried to communicate with the locals in English in which they try their very best to response in their super broken English. But the Japanese are really polite and helpful people, and the signboards here are very clear. Thank God we can read the Kanji (Chinese characters) so there’s no problem for us to take the JR train from Kansai Airport to ShinKanShen, which took slightly more then one hour. After resting for a short while, we proceed to take bullet train (shinkanshen) to HigashiHiroshima. It actually means the east of Hiroshima, so we are not in the city but a town on its east.

Japan is really clean, comparing to Msia. We hardly see any rubbish thrown on the street or anywhere. The government put in a lot of effort to make the country clean and tidy. The train system is really good! Fast, safe and comfortable. I like to watch the captains of each container, they are really smart! I told myself I must take a photo with one of them before I leave this place. Didn’t dare to do anything funny when I know not a word of Japanese.



The most amazing part is when we are waiting for the train, the first one to queue up is not the passengers, but the cleaners, at each entries. they’ll immediately clean up the train blocks once the train stopped. but of course, it doesn’t happen at every station but only at the last station. And it shocked me when I saw the chairs in the train turning in 180o! Their technology is far more advance than us; the chairs would just turn another side when the train stopped at the last station so that passengers would be comfortable. Everyone dress up so smartly in their uniform even if they are just the cleaners.

We reached HigashiHiroshima station at 12.40pm, already tired and hungry, dragging the over 60kg luggage (including backpacks). Alvin’s co-supervisor, Prof Okuda was in Tokyo for meeting, so his assistant, Miss Funato came to pick us up. together with her is Prof Okuda’s father, who can’t speak in English. they came in two cars, just in case we have too many luggages. :p

Arriving at the apartment we rent, which is near to the Hiroshima University, its far better than imagined.. two rooms, a kitchen cum living room, a store room, bathroom and toilet. it looks very new, and in fact it’s 1-2 years old only. after sometime only we get to know that the 2 months deposit we paid is for them to fix everything in the house and make it looks just exactly the same as before we moved in. if there’s any money left over they will return to us. But I’m not sure about that in our case. So that’s why you’ll find the apartments just like a new one.

We received few boxes of stuffs from Prof Okuda in the house, the comforters, some towels, kitchen utensils, bowls, cups etc, even toasters and rice cookers, fridge and washing machine! it saves us lots of money there. we are really grateful for that.

we settled the contract of the apartment, gas company coming to install the gas, took quite a long time before we could finally go for our lunch at 2.30pm. I tried the pork rice and Alvin tried the chicken with cheese inside, it’s delicious and obviously much healthier than food in M’sia. All the food are at least RM30-RM60. Prof Okuda’s dad treats us for the meal, though we can’t even talk much. Miss Funato has been our translator all the time.

They served us a special type of bowl with sesame, where we smash them into powder, then we add in either sweet sauce or the spicy sauce which is not spicy at all. It serves as sauce for our meat, rice etc. It really taste good! And they have this sauce which contains sesame also, and the orange sauce, I don’t know their names, you add them to the cabbages, it’s really yummy~

We get to go to a supermarket nearby, called YouMeTown to buy some stuff for ourselves, and get to meet Funato’s youngest son who is 2-half years old, same age as my niece Leanne. very talkative and easy going, even let me carry him though I know nothing of what he’s talking about.

Foods are costly, especially rice & fruits. we bought 5kg rice at over 1880 yen, which means around RM56.40. and that’s the cheapest we saw. and, imagine garlic, one or two only, cost you 248 yen, which means around RM7! that’s crazy.

Japanese take dinner early, 6pm we were brought out by Prof Okuda’s 3 students for dinner at a cafeteria in the university. meals there are much cheaper then. You can get your food as cheap as RM7 sth or less than RM15. You have to say it’s cheap cos there’s no meal can cost you less than RM5. Alvin chose curry rice, but it literally just the curry sauce and rice only. So that is the first time and the last time. :p I had ramen, which is much better then the one in M’sia.

We spent the night unpacking and put everything in place. It’s quite warm at day time, especially when you are under the sun, though the wind is cool. But at night, the temperature drops. To save electricity, we didn’t switch on the air-con. And we wore shorts and t-shirts, covering ourselves with comforters. waking up this morning we made decision to wear long pants and sweater even in the house.