We mainly stopped by Nagoya to meet up with Michelle's friend Rheanne. She teaches English now a bit outside Nagoya. I first met her I our last trip on in Vietnam. She is super fun and great to provide some insight and perceptive into a country.
We started by touring the castle grounds, we were too late in the day to visit the castle.
After dinner at an Aussie pub (crocodile tastes like chicken, lamb wrap was super yum!) we napped for a bit before heading out for a club.
The club was 5 floors each with different type of music though if you stay long enough each becomes a version of top 40.
I am typically not a club, dancin kinda girl (who am I kidding there is always some kind of bribery and peer pressure involved for me to go) but this was super fun! The music was great, place packed - couldn't move for two seconds before bumping into someone but the energy was crazy! Lots of jumping around, singing along and no guys hounding any of us to dance. It was a pretty foreigner free club so for us the sleaze factor was pretty low. Michelle, never knowing a stranger, talked to a bunch up people and they were super funny. Especially the girls. All the club bouncers were foreign and they were super on the ball...we got cornered by the washroom by a drink guy who insisted on kissing all of us (on the cheek),I was more than a bit squirmy and the security was right on the guy to get him away.
Next day we slowly made our way to Kanazawa. And I do mean slowly as we had to take the local train and not the Shinkansen. Still I bet on a race even the local train will give via a run for its money. I LOVE the transportation here!
Some tidbits from Rheanne...
- she seems a bit frustrated by the educational system. She was hired to introduce new methods to get kids to conversational English but they (the existing teachers) are resistant towards change. They still insists on having kids memorize vocabulary and practice set conversational lines.
- most of university kids party through (ok we did too but apparently this is serious parting) High school kids bust themselves for the exams to make it to well known universities then that's it. They surf by on the university reputation and learn what they need to on the job.
- speaking if jobs, women still generally work till they are married then quit the job to take care of husband and kids. Though we assume these are not the career minded lawyers, doctors of Japan, but who knows.
- the mothers are super competitive about the kids bento box presentation. Every tues kids bring lunch from school and the moms go crazy with all the cute accessories to make them cute! You can buy shape punches (sort of like for paper) but to cut cheese, nori etc.
- rest of the weekday the kids and teachers eat a school provided lunch. They check what you don't even, even on the teachers plates. It's ok to leave one thing behind but more than one thing the kids parents get a call.
- Japan in general but Nagoya in particular seems to love all thing France. So many bakeries and creaperies. And they are amazing, best I've had since Paris. The clothes lines and some house wares stuff has some kind of French connection. When people travel to France now they sell something called Paris shock syndrome insurgence. Every year a handful of japanese visitors are so traumatized by the city not meeting their expectations or the rudeness of the French, they end up in the Japanese embassy and have to be flown out! hence now the insurance!! I didn't experience any rudeness in my short stint in France. They were really nice when i got lost or when trying to pick bread. I feel like I missed out!
- May is the month for school field trips. Older kids head to Kyoto or Osaka. Travel agents know not to attempt to book group tours at this time. We saw scrolls of kids as in our travels. Typically in their uniforms with uni colored hats.
-kids wear their uniforms 6 day a week. This is so that if they misbehave you know which school to call to complain.
- the worst insult - call them a "baka" which is a trouble maker!
- there are no janitors in school, even in the private schools. During the school year the kids clean. On school breaks the teachers do. Oh yes the teachers are expected to show up for a regular work day even if the kids are on holiday.
-family status/class in a city is displayed by the license plate number , at least among the rich. The lower the plate number the older (and maybe richer) the family is. The license plate moves through the family generations. If you are the new rich you have to wait till one of these families run out of sons (I imagine) and bid for the plate.
-so far Japan in general is super quiet. We were in downtown Osaka, pretty large city, lots of traffic yet you could hear the china clang in a coffee shop as we walked by. I may have "Japanese shock syndrome" when I get home. If you find me missing pls check the Japanese embassy in Ottawa first. You may find me curled up there waiting for tra sport back!
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