Okazaki is a mid-size city located in the Aichi Prefecture, 30 minutes from Nagoya. The city has a population of approximately 350,000 people. My first impression of the city was a rather funny one because the first landmark I encountered was actually a Denny’s restaurant. It’s not exactly the kind of building that one associates with Japan. But since I was hungry and was too afraid of entering other restaurants, I went to Denny’s and ordered a Flower-topped hamburger (just because I’ve always wanted to try it – Thanks, Rozen Maiden!) and a dessert containing Nata De Coco.

Next to Denny’s there is a 100-yen shop called ‘Daiso’. I would eventually peruse this store many times to buy several things from notebooks to buckets because everything was so cheap (generally only costs 100 Yen). Looking back, I really miss these two places. I often went to these places with my friends either by bike or by walking from the student accommodation. We often stayed until late or came really late at night (1 am) just to study at Denny’s. The place was open until 4am so if we felt hungry, we could always order something there.

My first major trip within the city was a visit to the Miso Factory. Apart from fireworks, Okazaki is also known for its Hatcho-Miso. There is actually a Miso factory not far from the Okazaki Castle. So one day, my friends and I decided to give the place a ring and see if we can take a look at the factory/museum. It was quite memorable for me because it was the first time many of us knew each other. It was quite awkward at first but we really had fun cycling together and tasting some unusual Miso products such as Miso Ice cream (it was really good actually).

I also like some of the houses that we got to see in the city. These houses are not exactly traditional houses but they retain some of the Japanese characteristics that made them look different from houses in other countries. For example, I often encountered this small mini shrine in front of a house. I’m not exactly sure about the function of the shrine but it’s really beautiful to look at. I noticed similar shrine in front of the Miso Factory and in some other places. So maybe they serve as some kind of protection for the place.

When we’re not busy studying at the school, we often went out and explored the city. Some of the unusual building we encountered includes a place called ‘Wedding Plaza’. Apparently it’s a plaza where people go to shop for their entire wedding needs. I thought it was quite amusing because here’s this one big plaza and it sells nothing but wedding supplies. There is also a church next to the plaza and at one point I did see a wedding took place inside the church. So all in all, the area is one handy location for people who want to get married.

Okazaki also has some small temples scattered all around the city. The nicest one, in my opinion, is this small one located not far from Okazaki Castle/Park. I accidentally stumbled upon it while I was looking for Okazaki Castle. It’s such a small and quiet temple. At a glance, it looks deserted but the temple was in a rather good condition so I think it’s simply not used that often. But other than that, it is quite functional. I tried to take a panoramic shot of the temple and you can check it out below after I stitched them using photo manipulation program.

I have so many memorable moments of this city. One of the moments was this one rainy night where we all went to an all-you-can-eat restaurant to bid farewell to two friends who were leaving earlier than the rest of us. It was a nightmare walking to the restaurant in such heavy rain. But we all had good fun even though the event itself was a reminder that many of us would soon leave the city as well. I also still remember going to Karaoke with these guys or going on a 5+ hours bike ride to somewhere outside the city.

These days, I can’t help but missing the city every now and then. Every time I open my Japanese textbook, for some reason I’m being reminded of the time I spent together with the friends that I made in that city. I actually try not to remember it as much because doing so makes me a bit depressed. I know that none of us who came to this city will ever have a similar experience like the one we had a few months ago. All of us are now living in a different country and doing different things. I even wonder if some of my friends still remember about it.

I often think it’d be nice if we can see each other again. But even if we plan some kind of a reunion, the chances that all of us can make it to the city within the same time frame is quite small. I mean some of my friends are now busy studying at University while others are interested in going to other countries to do working holiday. Oh well, I think it was one of those rare experiences that most of us don’t get to experience more than once and besides, I’m still in contact with some of those friends. I do want to go back this city again one day just to relive it all over again.

17/7/08 Addendum: I just read the whole article through again and realized how sappy the whole article sounds. Having said that, it really was one of the best times in my life and I was lucky to have had the chance to experience it. It’s hard to believe that 3 years have passed since I last spent my time there.

I’ve been wondering lately what I want to do with this blog. Personally I feel guilty for neglecting it. It feels as if the blog is incomplete. Because of this, I decided to continue blogging what I saw/experienced while I was in Japan. Of course since I am not in Japan anymore, what you read is no longer up to date. But I don’t think it matters, at least not for me. I simply want to turn this into some kind of journal which I can read back and reminiscence. Hopefully by the time I almost run out of things to talk about, it’ll be time for me to go back to Japan again. :)

With that in mind, I’ll just start with a post about anime shops. The first anime shop I visited was Soft in Akihabara. Since that was the first time I entered a full-on anime store, I was a bit shocked to see a store full of nothing but anime and anime related goods. If I remember correctly, the first level is dedicated to manga, the second level is for anime and games, the third level is for hobby kits, and I can’t remember what’s on the fourth and fifth or if those levels actually exist. Either way, it was one hell of an eye opener for me.

When I think about it, it’s weird that I didn’t buy anything back then. I was probably a bit overwhelmed by the sights and too busy looking for a PSP. In addition to this, I had to spent 2.5 months in Okazaki, so I was afraid that I’d run out of money unless I only buy what I really needed. However, during the four days of my stay in Tokyo, I went at least 3 times to Akihabara just to look around the stores. I managed to get some photos but since I was always in a hurry and tried not to use flash, the pictures ended up blurry.

My second visit to an anime shop happened when I went to Nagoya with a friend. We were actually looking for a denshi-jisho (electronic dictionary) and a digital camera. However, on our way to the electronic shop, we got lost and stumbled upon a big Animate shop. He’s actually not a big anime fan since the only anime he’s seen were Full Metal Alchemist and Honey and Clover. Nevertheless, he’s nice enough to put up with me when I told him that I want to see the shop for ’5 minutes’. In reality, we probably spent at least 20 minutes inside the shop since the shop is quite big.

The first floor contains mostly manga and I wasn’t in the mood to buy any so we went to the second floor which has a lot of Shitajiki (Pencil Board). Looking back, I really regret the fact that I didn’t buy the Yakitate!! Japan pencilboard while I was there. I wanted to buy the Tsukino and Kawachi one but once again, my tight budget forced me to think “I’ll buy it later before I leave Japan”. I never did. I saw a lot of Mai-Hime pencilboard but the pictures don’t look that special to me and I was still bitter from the ending, so they didn’t register on my ‘must-purchase list’.

Anyway, we then went to the anime section of the shop. I noticed a lot of Air boxsets. Who the hell said that this thing is hard to get? There were a lot of unsold Air boxsets in almost every anime shop I went to. There are also a lot of other rare boxsets there, but strangely, I didn’t feel the desire to purchase any of them. Maybe the amount of anime available in that shop took its toll on me. It started to become not special anymore. By the time we got to the figurine section in the third or fourth floor (can’t remember), I felt that I’ve had enough and we both exited the shop without buying anything.

When we got out of the shop, we noticed that there are a lot of capsule stations lining up in front of the shops. Capsule station is basically a mini vending machine device that offers various mini-figurines/keychains. Some of these are quite cheap (around 100 Yen) while others can cost you up to 300 Yen. I noticed that there were some Range Murata-designed figurines inside one of those capsules. However, when I found out that they’re not painted, I decided not to waste my 300 Yen on it. I didn’t bother to check the rest of the capsules since by then, I felt bad for my friend who have been patiently following me around while I was browsing the shop.

I actually made a lot of trips back to Nagoya every week while I was in Japan. However, it’s not until the last few weeks before I left the country that I found this nifty little shop called Jump Shop. Judging from the name, I’m sure everyone can guess that this is a shop that specifically sells various goods related to Shounen Jump series such as Naruto, Bleach, and Death Note. One of the things that immediately attracted my attention was this nice-looking figurines of both Ichigo and Orihime. I can’t exactly remember the price but I remember it being quite affordable, had I still have a lot of money. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much left.

It was definitely not fun being in this kind of shop and not having much money. Unfortunately, after buying digital camera, PSP, electronic dictionary, and lots of manga, there’s not much left for other types of souvenirs. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop my spending mentality when I saw these nice-looking Zangetsu and Zabimaru keychains. There are a lot of keychains being sold inside this store but none of them looks like they worth the price that you have to pay. These two, however, look so detailed and exceptional that I ended up buying them despite the relatively expensive price (700 Yen each) in comparison to other keychains (which usually only cost around 200 Yen each).

「電車」 – Electric Train
「地下鉄」 – Subway
「新幹線」 – Bullet Train

I actually wanted to write about this before my post about Okazaki Castle. However, due to the incident that happened in Japan around the same time, I figure it’s a bit insensitive to do it back then. So I decided to wait even though chronologically, this happened first prior to my visit to Okazaki Castle or my arrival in Okazaki for that matter. Oh well, these things happen and besides, I use train from time to time so I don’t see how it’ll make that much of a difference whether or not I post this now or back then.

Anyway, when I first learned about ‘Densha’, ‘Chikatetsu’, and ‘Shinkansen’, I had a bit of difficulty understanding the difference between the three words. This is mostly because, in general, all three are basically trains that travel at high speed. It’s not until I arrive in Japan that I understand what the Japanese refers to as ‘Densha’ are basically all of the normal ground trains. These trains are mostly operated by JR (Japan Railways) although there are other companies that run similar service as well.

‘Chikatetsu’ are basically underground trains or subways, as some people called them. So far I’ve only encounter subways when I go to the big cities like Tokyo or Nagoya. To give you an example, if you want to go to Akihabara and you happen to own a JR rail pass, you’ll want to take the Yamanote line. However, if you stay at Asakusa like I did, you can’t take the Yamanote line straight away from Asakusa station. You first have to catch a subway from Asakusa to Ueno, then take the Yamanote line from the Ueno station.

Then there’s the ‘Shinkansen’. These are basically on-the-ground trains that travel at a speed that is faster than normal Densha. IIRC, these days Shinkansen runs at around 300km/h. Apparently the super-fast Nozomi runs even faster than that. The Shinkansen that I used was basically the one that services the Tokaido/Sanyo lines. This Shinkansen basically connects Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka. Depending whether you take Hikari or Kodama, it’ll take approximately 3 hours to go from Tokyo to Osaka.

These trains travel so fast to the point that when another train passes by next to it, sometimes you can feel a slight shake inside the train. It took a while for me to get used to this and not have my heart jumped every couple of minutes. After a while, however, it was a pure joy to be inside a Shinkansen. If you happen to have a PSP+Ridge Racer game, try playing it inside a Shinkansen. I guarantee that you’ll get a kick out of it. It feels as if you really are driving a very fast car. The outside view is not that bad either, IMO.

Each Shinkansen is usually divided into smoking and non-smoking cabins. If you are a non-smoker like I am, then I suggest that you make a booking for a non-smoking cabin because you really don’t want to spend 3 hours in a cabin full of smokers. I once passed through it and I felt as if I’m smoking as well. In general, however, the Shinkansen is clean and tidy. So if you go to Japan, you probably want to try it once. And if you have the money to spare, you may want to pay for the more expensive Green cabin or even better, the super-fast Nozomi trains.

Inside the Shinkansen, you can also find some toilets, vending machines, and a mobile cafeteria that sells drinks, snacks, and bento boxes. The bento box is also another thing you should try while you’re taking Shinkansen. Each box is carefully prepared so that the food looks appetizing. Unfortunately, the bento boxes sold inside a Shinkansen do not contain hot foods so if you’re not into cold food like Sushi and Japanese pickled vegetables, this may not be your cup of tea. I enjoyed mine though it’s nice to try something different every day.

Anyway, because all trains travel at such a fast speed, it is rare that the train is late to arrive at the destination. However, this also means that you have to be on time for your train whether it’s Shinkansen, Densha, or Chikatetsu. If the train is supposed to leave at 9am in the morning, and you arrive at the station at 8.55am, then you have precisely 4 minutes and 59 seconds to board the train. That’s right, 4 minutes and 59 seconds, not 5 minutes, not 8 minutes, let alone 10 minutes. So if you’re late, you have no one to blame but yourself.

The major train stations themselves are pretty interesting to see. These stations normally have multiple entry and exit area and can be confusing for first time visitors. Some train stations have various shops that sells Omiyage (souvenir), Bento Boxes, and Clothes. There are also various restaurants if you go to the big one like the one in Ueno. I have to admit that I’m now somewhat converted to the wonder that is Ramen after trying a bowl of Ramen at a ramen shop inside Nagoya station.

Well, that went a lot longer than what I had in mind. There goes my plan to revise chapter 14-19. I better stop here but I’ll try to do another train/station entry if I manage to take some pictures when we go to Nagoya to watch the Dragons’ baseball game. I’ve heard that different province has different Omiyage on sale so I’d try to take pictures of the Omiyage in Nagoya. Anyway, if you have a specific pictures you want me to take, please let me know. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to take them but I’ll give it a try.

I’m sorry that I haven’t updated this blog for a while. Along with my promise not to publish articles without carefully checking their legibility, there have been some unexpected development here in Japan. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I didn’t expect my study workload to be this heavy. In addition to attending school from 9am to 2.30pm, we are expected to learn many new vocabularies and finish our homework every day. It feels like high school all over again – only far more fun, I think.

On top of this, I also didn’t expect to make new friends while I’m here. But that’s exactly what happened. Back in my country, I barely had the time to socialize with other people since I work from 9 to 5. I do have some friends that I sometimes spend time with. But since all of us have a job, we don’t get together that often. This is why I had quite a lot of time to blog back then. When I first arrived here in Japan, I thought I’ll be using most of my time to study and the rest of the time to blog. However, it wasn’t long before I met some really nice people here.

Anyway, moving on to the actual story, Japanese night stall is something that I never experienced before I went to Japan. The stalls don’t open until around 6pm-ish, if I remember correctly. The products on offer usually are snack foods like Ikayaki (grilled squid on a stick), Takoyaki, Oden, Candied Apple/Strawberries on a stick, Churos, etc. Unfortunately, the price is rather expensive in comparison to almost similar items you can get at a nearby convenience store. Having said that, I think it’s good to buy them just to soak in the atmosphere. In addition to the food stalls, there are also various game stalls where you can pay 300 yen to try a fishing game, for example.

The night stalls that I went to just happened to be set up not far from the Okazaki Castle. And since I went to the Castle a bit late in the day (around 4pm-ish), by the time I finished taking all of the photographs, the stalls were already opened. I saw a lot of high school students visiting the stalls in pair. I supposed, it is a rather romantic place to spend the time together with your loved one. The place was also filled with working mother/father taking their young children so I got the impression that the place attracts different types of people despite the high number of students that filled the area.

Okay, I’m not even supposed to write this now since I have a conjugation test in the next 2 days and I still haven’t studied for it. But I can’t concentrate anymore, so I thought I’ll write few paragraphs. Anyway, I have to say that I’ve been rather lucky during my trip here in Japan. I think it was a really good decision to go during Spring instead of Summer. Apparently there are many things to see and do almost every season in Japan. It’s just that they are different things to see and do. Having said that, I’ve always wanted to experience Hanami (flower watching) for a long time so I thought it’s better if I go around Spring time.

Anyway, if you do plan to go in Spring, make sure that you arrive between mid March to mid April. You’ll lose a chance to see the Sakura if you go afterwards. This is because the flowers constantly fall within this one month. So by the time it’s the middle of April, you don’t see them anymore. Maybe there will be one or two left in some areas but you’ll be hard-pressed to find it. I was quite lucky that I went to Okazaki Castle while the Sakura were still in full bloom. I’m sure the Castle will still be awesome even without the Sakura but the addition of Sakura all around it makes the Castle looks better.

Well, I started my trip using the bike that I just rented from a local bike shop. The Castle turned out to be quite far from the place where I stay. On top of this, I also ended up taking a wrong side at one point in the journey. Having said that, I have to say that I really enjoyed riding the bike while Sakura petals were blowing all around me. The photograph that I have here don’t really do any justice to the actual place. After asking some locals for directions, I eventually find the Castle itself. Bikes, however, are not allowed to go around the Castle area so I parked it a couple of meters away from the Castle.

The first few things that I saw around the area (apart from the Cherry Blossoms) are the various merchants trying to set up stalls for the night festival. I will write about this after I completed my exam but right now I just don’t have the time for it. Anyway, a short walk eventually took me to a red bridge that connects the outer area to the inner Castle surrounding itself. Once again, you have to be there to really see how good the view was. Everything in the area (the river, the bridge, the vegetation) seems to be perfect – as in an element nicely complements the other. As a result it wasn’t that difficult to take a good photograph of the place.

After crossing the bridge, you’ll start to see more Food merchants inside the area as well. They’re selling everything from bite-sized cookies to Takoyaki. The Castle itself sits neatly at the top of the area so I thought it’d be nice to get a good shot of it. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any good angle of the Castle. But if you’re interested to see what the entire Castle looks like, just click on the last image that I placed on this entry. I didn’t take that photograph myself. It was actually an image of the castle taken by someone else and framed inside the castle. I simply took a photo of the picture with my camera. No plagiarism was intended.

I decided to pay 200 Yen to enter the Castle. I am not sure if that was a good decision or not but I have to say that there wasn’t much to see inside the Castle itself. According to the folklore, the Castle was apparently built back in 1455 by the Saigo family. However, during the 16th century, the Saigo family yielded the Castle to Matsudaira Kiyoyasu, the 7th lord of the Matsudaira family, who will eventually become the grandfather of Lord Ieyasu. For 3 centuries, Okazaki Castle were honored as the birthplace of Ieyasu and the Tokugawa Shogunate. The Castle was guarded heavily by hereditary vassal daimyos who wield enormous power during their time.

During the Meiji Restoration period, the feudal clans were abolished and in 1873-1874, Okazaki Castle itself was demolished, leaving only its moat and stone wall. In 1959, however, the triple-roof, five story Castle, as well as its annex and wellhouse were masterfully reconstructed according to the original model. Today, the castle is simply a museum for local and international visitors. It basically displays the history of the Castle as well as the city. If you’re interested, Okazaki is now known as the producer of fireworks materials. Okazaki is particularly famous of its Hanabi – fireworks (not to be confused with Hanami – which is flower watching) festival.

You can actually go all the way up to the fifth level of the Castle and get a view of the entire city. Unfortunately, there are bars around the area so it’s rather hard to enjoy the view when you feel as if you’re inside a prison. Nevertheless, I was quite happy with what I saw and I don’t think I will ever forget the experience of entering the Castle itself. It may have been refurbished to suit its new purpose as a museum. Having said that, I can still see traces of how the Castle may have been used back in the olden days. And of course, I did manage to snap tens of pictures around the area, which in itself made me quite happy.