Namba

I am sorry if I write to much. Chrissy tells me that my e-mails are more like journals. If they are too much, I will try to put the Juicy stuff in bold. I don't see bold as an option. . .oops!

Right now, I am eating my morning bowl of cereal. There are very few brands of cereal. The stores stock maybe 5 to 10 different kinds and thats it. Special K is the only American brand. It is in a very small box that costs about $4.00. I eat a Japanese brand of corn flakes, they are almost frosted.

It's 3:30 pm pst. I have taken out our burnable garbage and all I need to do is get ready for the day. This is my last day of work for about 11 days. This is the long summer break for the teachers.

Yesterday, again, we had very little to do at work. I did proof a schedule for Sakurai. The schedule is for a symposium in October or November. It will cover three topics: English education, Math education, and Special Needs education in Japan. Delegates from WSU and PSD will be here. After I proofed the pages, Sakurai and I talked about Special Education in the states. It looks like Japan is moving toward the American model. I finally feel like I may be able to contribute some information to the Sogo staff.

In the afternoon they turned us loose again. Chrissy and I finally took some public transportation, which really isn't too easy. Everything is in Japanese. There are only a couple of rail signs which have any English on them at all. So you need to know the rail line you're on and the stations around yours. Our goal was to reach Namba, a shopping and nightlife center in southern Osaka. We made it to Osaka fine, but when we went to make the transfer, we were two confused Americans on the platform. Finally, a Korean kid from So Cal came over and helped us. It turned out that he and two of his friends are touring Japan for a couple of weeks before they begin college this fall. They didn't speak Japanese, but had been around Osaka for a couple of days. They helped us make the transfers to Namba.



Namba, whoa!!! It is really cool. It is an open air mall with everything you can think of. When I say open air, it really is a covered street. The street is only one lane, but it is packed with pedestrians. Some of Namba can be seedy, with Love Hotels and strip joints (I really don't know, they were advertised as Ladies Lounges, I didn't go in). They have Japanese Casinos, Pachinko Parlors, I think they are called. They play slot machines with little steel balls about the size of marbles. You could easily go deaf in one of those places. I stood out side of one for a minute, while Chrissy shopped in one of the many shoe stores, and I thought I was standing next to a roller coaster. Everytime the door opened I was hit by a rush of sound. Think of Vegas but turn the volume up to Eleven.

There were all kinds of shops, book stores, shoes, theaters, and plenty of restraunts. Many of the restraunts are just bars or the depth of a bar with flags that hang down to about my waist. You step behind the flags, up to the bar, and order. We only saw a small portion of Namba. On our way out, we passed by a police officer and he came up to us and told us about a very famous temple in the middle of Namba. "50 Meters walk, that way." Is the direction he gave us, I am glad he did. The road, or passes in between two sections of the temple. At first, I didn't see the Buddha, I was watching people pray on the other side of the street, but when they crossed the street, I saw another part of the ritual. They would step into an area, pray, and fling a ladle full of water at something. When Chrissy and I stepped around to the side of the temple, we could see a life size Buddha covered in moss. Rather is front side was covered in moss and his back was stone. People have flung a constant stream of water for "Buddha" knows how long, but everything in front of the Buddha for a radius of about 4 or 5 feet was covered in moss. Outside that radius, was stone. All created by the worshippers.

Since the trains stop running at midnight, we left Namba just before 9:00, but not before I got my hair cut in the subway station. Best cut of my life! He even shaved my ears, what can I say, I'm an old man.
All for a thousand yen.

In the subway we got lost again. Wrong track. But I am getting pretty good at my confused American face and a nice lady escorted us to our platform. The subway was a little more expensive, but much quicker. It took us almost an hour to get to our bikes and home. If you come visit, Namba is a place you should see. I think there will be a lot of places you should see.

I gotta go to work. Somebody has got to earn some rice! Rex