Week 1

…And suddenly there I was, in a country completely foreign to me, surrounded by people whose language I didn’t understand. That was really strange at first. When you’re no longer able to communicate with people, it’s no small feat. Of course, that’s not to say it wasn’t extremely exciting, too. Those first few days, when I was staying in Ikemon Hotel, I did a fair bit of wandering round the immediate vicinity, absorbing my new surroundings. (The building with the big clock on it is Ikemon Hotel.) At one point I walked past a little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old. She saw that I was a foreigner and evidently wanted to show off her English… so she pulled away from her parents and gave me a big “Hello!”. That was the first English word I heard in Nagano.

On my second night in Japan, I was looking around for a place to have dinner when, through one of the restaraunt windows, I saw a shimmering gold substance hanging from a woman’s chopsticks. It was ramen!! (You know, those egg noodles I’m obsessed with!) I practically bounced inside and was invited to sit down. Then one of the chefs asked me (presumably) what I wanted. Of course, I had no idea what to reply, but they cooked me up a ramen dish anyway. (And it was pretty damn good.) Later, an old man entered the restaraunt, sat himself beside me, and refilled my glass of water (a Japanese custom). We engaged in some very fragmented conversation – him using about five words of English, and me using about five words of Japanese – but we somehow communicated. He was one of the first people I spoke to in Japan. It goes to show how friendly the people are here.

On my first weekend, I went to Togakushi with two of my co-workers, Kym and Phil. Togakushi is north of Nagano and took about 45mins by bus. It’s famous for its three shrines, the ninja museum, and (looming above it all menacingly) the jagged-slope beauty that is Mt Togakushi. Even though it was a warm, sunny day, we found ourselves trekking through snow. There was so much snow, in fact, that the ninja museum still hadn’t reopened yet for spring, which was extremely disappointing. But regardless, we checked out Chusha Shrine and walked up the base of Mt Togakushi to Okusha Shrine (which was nearly completely drowned by snow). I had to laugh when I saw a yellow-panted Japanese guy slipping down a small slope uncontrollably, flailing his man-bag about. You just don’t get that kind of humour in Australia.

See slideshow.

The following day, I went out shopping with another co-worker, Michie. That night she introduced me to okonomiyaki – an awesome, savoury, Japanese-type pancake. You select which ingredients you want (anything: meat, seafood, vegetables), and they serve it to you in a bowl with sauce (soup) and raw egg. You’ve gotta stir it all up together, and when you’re done you put it on the hotplate before you and cook it yourself. When it’s finally cooked, you serve it with miso sauce, seaweed sprinkles, and bonito (fish) flakes. Being the typical aussie, my okonomiyaki was packed full of meat: chicken, pork and beef.

As Michie drove me home, we detoured partway up one of the mountains that border the city. We stopped on the side of the road to see Nagano’s night view. If I hadn’t loved Nagano before that, I did then. Michie took a photo with her camera and later sent it to me: