Moriguchishi and Doi Station

The home page for Moriguchishi includes relatively little information.  There is a link to a page about a new health plan, descriptions of the city's official tree and flower (a pink blossom called "satsuki"), a visual guide of the mayor's office.  It is not flashy or chaotic like the shopping and clubbing districts of Osaka, and there is not much of historical significance that I can see either.  I even ran into a friend on the Keihan line--dressed in a full suit and nice shoes, no less.  It was so contrary to my image of him that for a second I barely recognized him.  He was on his way to a part-time job a few stops before me.  I asked him, "Do you know Moriguchi-shi at all?" And he said "No... I only hear the name when I come through here on the way to work."  Because of this, I was entirely unsure of what to expect when I left the small but spotless and strangely homey Doi Station.

These are a few of the first views I had on exiting the stations--clean, quite roads bordered by flowers and trees, a line of small shops and restaurants.  There was hardly anyone in town when I came in, which was a shock after being used to extremely crowded streets and long lines no matter where I went.  Most of the people who lived here seemed to be older, grandparents with grandchildren, or young couples with tiny children, or people on the way to work, just passing through.

A small market selling fresh fruit and seeds for gardening.

The small town atmosphere and the potted flowers on every street reminded me of a small town in my native New England.  I was a little bit in love.

I wandered around for a little while, taking pictures.  I got the distinct impression that as a gaijin, I was an incredible rarity.

I decided eventually that I wanted to stop for a lunch, and found to my surprise a covered mall on the other side of Doi Station.  It was lined with tempting sit-down restaurants and bakeries, hundred-yen shops, and supermarkets selling fresh fruit for cheaper than I have ever seen it before.  While I was exploring up and down the street and attracting a lot of stares, I had an experience that to me seemed very quintessentially Japanese.  To my right, the covered mall opened up onto a beautiful Shinto shrine.

There was one main shrine with a bell and a few smaller ones to make prayers at, a station to wash your hands before entering, a place to buy good luck charms and souvenirs.  It made me think of my earlier ideas about connections between what seemed sacred and what seemed mundane in Japan.  A covered mall opening up into a traditional place of worship? In America, it would be unthinkable, but here, it didn't seem so surprising somehow.

For lunch, I eventually decided on a small, sit-down okonomiyaki restaurant inside the covered mall.  For 650 yen, I was given a large, delicious okonomiyaki, miso soup, rice, pickled radishes, some kind of pork-slices appetizer, and unlimited green tea.  While I was waiting, a customer who, like me, was eating alone, was seated across from me with my permission.  She looked up at me once shyly before quickly looking back down at her phone to text.  She seemed shy and a bit bookish, and reminded me a little of a children's librarian.  She seemed young, maybe in her late 20s to early 30s, and was dressed modestly.  After a somewhat awkward silence, I introduced myself to her.  She didn't tell me her name at first, although she did seem eager to chat once I had started.  What was I doing here? Was I a student? Did I find chopsticks hard to use? Where was I from originally?  I did manage to learn a bit about her, as well.  She didn't live in Moriguchishi, she was only here because of her job as an Office Lady.  She had never travelled abroad, although she would like to.  She liked to come to this place for her lunch break.  This seemed to fit what I had observed so far about Moriguchishi--it seemed like a neighborhood for older people, or people with families.  Everyone else was just passing through.  The Office Lady left before me when her lunch hour was almost up.  As I left, the staff thanked me for coming and quizzed me a bit about my origins.  "Please come again," the store owner beamed at me.

As I waited for the return train at Doi Station, I was surrounded by men in full suits waiting for the train as well.  This place was not their home or city either, just a transitory station.  As for me, I really enjoyed my visit and I would love to go again.

Portrait of a Japanese Person

For my portrait of a Japanese person, I asked one of my Seminar House's Japanese roommates, Tamaki, to pose for me. 

Tamaki, or Tama-chan, is one of the sweetest, most genki people I have ever met.  Ever since I moved into Seminar House 1, she's always been ready with a smile and a compliment.  I think that one of the things I like the most about her is that she has such a bubbly, sweet attitude but she's also incredibly diligent.  I've seen her literally stay up all night to study, which is one of the reasons I chose this picture.  I wanted to capture both her amazing smile and her diligent nature.

When I think of her I also think of a story that makes me feel simultaneously guilty and grateful.  In our dorm kitchen, we have had a problem with people not properly cleaning their cooking utensils.  Especially in the case of rice cookers, this can get somewhat disgusting--rice crusted into the bowls and all.  One morning, Tamaki cleaned all the dishes and rice cookers.  Even though they weren't mine, I felt such a sense of collective guilt for my fellow students and appreciation for Tamaki.  I feel really priveleged to have met her.

My Neighborhood

I have been living, playing and going to school in Hirakata-shi now for about a month.  I feel like I've learned a lot here and made a lot of wonderful friends, and I really love my Seminar House and the people who live here.  However, if I was asked to choose which part of Hirakata-shi constitutes my neighborhood for me, I wouldn't pick the streets surrounding my Seminar House, even though I've spent so much time sleeping, playing, studying and shopping around the area.  Even though I feel comfortable here, I can't say I have ever interacted with my neighbors, apart from a "Konnichiwa" here and there or a stare and uncomfortable silence.

For me, Kansai Gaidai and the surrounding student apartments and hundred-yen stores are my neighborhood.  Kansai Gaidai is like a safety bubble--while I'm here, I sometimes forget that I'm a foreigner. 

And right outside of Kansai Gaidai are my friends' apartments, where I go to have dinner and hang out, or the aptly named "Seminar House 5"--Cafe Istanbul, the bar where you're guaranteed to run into a friend or classmate, the Lawson hundred-yen store where we buy most of our essential groceries, and New Delhi, the Indian restaurant where you can get curry, rice, mango lassi and unlimited naan for about 700 yen if you make it in time for the lunch special. 

                                          Nabe stew and Yakisoba at a friend's apartment.

To me, the neighborhood stretches from end to end of Kansai Gaidai, encompassing the student apartments, the nearby Top World and Lawson 100 yen store on one end, and Shimamura and Avail on another.  This is the place that feels the most like home to me.  That may be because it's mainly a community of students like myself--they work at the grocery shops and stores here, they shop here, they play here.  This is the community that I feel the most a part of.

First Impressions of Japan

So do you want to know something really crazy? The other night I went to a moon viewing festival in Kyoto.

Every so often I have these moments--I've somewhat adjusted to the daily grind here, and I'll just be going about my business, maybe worrying about my homework or complaining about the heat, and I'll stop in my tracks and think, "Hey... I'm in Japan!" 

I think that if I had to summarize my first impression of Japan I would focus on how closely the wonderful and the mundane coexist.  You could spend the night listening to hauntingly beautiful traditional Japanese music at a full-moon viewing festival in a beautiful temple in Kyoto, and spend the next day browsing second-hand manga shops in a heavily industrialized city setting.  Perhaps this is true of many countries, but I feel that in America at least the two extremes are not so close.  Before coming to Japan I was even told that Kyoto was ugly.  I don't think so.  The train station may have been all gritty concrete, but I felt as if around every corner were scenes of spectacular beauty.

This is a snapshot from Kiyomizu-dera, which I was thrilled to visit.  In this one trip to Kyoto, I made a wish at a Shinto shrine and drank from a fountain said to bring things like love, health and prosperity to the drinker.  I also went shopping in a department store, visited an underground mall and ate at a "Ninja Cafe" that catered mostly to tourists and served a great deal of Western food buffet-style. 

When I make a mental inventory of all the things I've done in my first few weeks here, I'm most astounded at their diversity.  To note: I have visited Kyoto twice, once to visit Kiyomizu-dera and shop and once to attend the annual Tsuki-Mi festival.  I have also been to karaoke four times, gone drinking at a middle eastern-style bar, taken purikura (print club photos) and had a birthday party at Sweets Paradise, an extremely pink buffet-style restaurant that specializes in pastries and girls' birthdays. 

These things seem unrelated, but they're not.  They are all part of the tapestry that makes up Japan.  As I see more and more of this wonderful country of neon lights, boy bands and hauntingly beautiful temples, shrines and castles, I hope to learn how they're connected.