Osaka is a Big City

So it is abnormal for me to write more than one blog post in a week (or sometimes in a month), but what happened last night deserves a blog posting. Well, while it was happening I told myself that I must write about in my blog since at the time everything was ten times more dramatic than it probably really was. Yesterday had gone so well, I met a lot of new people in my program from all over the world. Everyone I've met has been nice and friendly, and I've already learned many things about other countries. There are students from Finland, Iceland, Sweden, China, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Germany, France, Italy, and Czech Republic. There was another UAF student and someone from Hawaii. A nicely diverse group.

So far, I have been very worried about payment since they can't just take my card and make life easier. My bank only allows me to withdraw so much in a day and when you are paying tuition to a university, usually the amount they allow in a day is not even a quarter of what you need. So for more than a few days I will have to pull lots of cash out, so it is a bit stressful. I'm not very fond of drawing things out. I want to give them my money at once and be done instead of prolonging it. But there is no other option so that is it.

Anyway, it was not a money issue that happened yesterday. I've told the story a few times today and every time I did it sounded a lot less scary than how I had felt. Let me explain that Osaka is a huge city. There are over a lot of people. The population situation is complicated so read the first paragraph of this webpage if you really want to know:

http://www.osaka-info.jp/en/about/overview.html

I live in Ibaraki City in Osaka, which is in the Kansai region. After meeting some new friends, I was invited to go to Osaka City with them (i.e. big buildings, big city, lots of people). Around six I knew that I should head home since I live with a host family and wasn't sure how long it would take me to get home from there. I didn't want my host mom to wonder where I was or think that I had neglected to tell her that I planned to stay out (my host dad seems to come home at like one in the morning). So the others I was with took my to the station and helped me get on a train. The whole train thing is very confusing and apparently there is a BIG difference between the Hankyu Line and the JR Ibaraki Line. I always use the JR Ibaraki Line to go home and go to school, but this time I was on the Hankyu Line thinking that I was headed towards JR Ibaraki Station (the stop I go home from).

One of the others had told me to wait eleven stops. So I did. But then I was very confused as I was sure that 'Ibaraki' was in my stop's name. There were two Ibaraki stops, Ibaraki-Shi and Ibaraki-Minami. I thought that maybe she had miscounted so went to get off at Ibaraki-Shi but nothing looked right and right when I finally decided to get off the doors shut on me so I got off at the next station ... a very shady and dark station. So I was confused and had to buy a ticket to go back because I left the station for a moment to look around. I got back on and got off at Ibaraki-Shi.

By this time it was 6:45-6:50 and the Ibaraki-Shi station was probably so frustrating to me because it was sinking in that I was maybe lost. At first I thought that maybe the Hankyu Line and the JR Ibaraki Line were in the same station but different floors. That was not correct and eventually I stepped out of the station and recognized that Ibaraki-Shi was where I had been dropped off on a bus to meet my host mom the first time. Except that after that we got in a taxi and drove for a long time. I took the challenge to see if I could remember the way we had gone but once I ran across a temple I realized I had never seen that. I would have remembered that one. At any other situation, I would have taken pictures and been excited to see a Japanese temple, but I was starting to get upset so went back and then headed down a different street. It was a dark street with very few lights so I rushed back to the station to wander around, lost and confused.

At about 7:30-7:45 or somewhere around that time, I was freaking out. I contemplated my options, but wanted to sit since I had been walking since about 4:00 and my legs were beginning to tire. I couldn't find any seats and had grown hot and sweaty, which has unfortunately been happening a lot in Osaka. Every time I go outside for any amount of time I sweat so much I feel like I took a bath. The humidity doesn't help, especially since according to internet it has been 95-100% humidity on top of being around 25C/77F to 36C/97F. I couldn't find any payphones, although, I'm honestly not even sure there are many of those if there are any in Japan. Finally, I gathered up the courage to go to one of the information booths and ask for help.

The woman was very nice and even printed out a map for me. She said it was a twenty minute walk to JR Ibaraki Station or that I could take connecting trains or whatever. I was told walking was cheaper and I'm poor anyway so said I would just walk. She printed out a map for me, told me to go left once I exited the station and the street would be one long path. So I did that. 8:00 was coming up and I was already The map was super basic and I walked for quite a while. The street began to grow thinner, less people, very few streetlamps ... the street was supposed to be a bigger one, at least I figured that from the map. I began to doubt myself, wondering if I was too dumb to read a map. Eventually I came across a large turn. According to the map I was never supposed to turn until I saw the train station. There was definitely no train station in sight and the area I was in was super quiet besides fucking cicadas chirping. I even contemplated what I would say if a woman with one of those sickmask things came up and asked me if she was beautiful (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchisake-onna [Answer: I don't speak Japanese well]).

Occasionally there'd be a business man on a bike who'd ride by, or a creepy-looking older guy that always seemed to swerve a little when he walked ... or two old ladies walking side by side, laughing. Finally, a girl on a bike came by and I made myself stop being lame and asked her where JR Ibaraki Station was. She told me that I was going the completely wrong way and needed to go back to Ibaraki-Shi Hankyu Station. I had walked for about thirty minutes. I sped walked back, the heels of my shoes cutting into my feet and I could feel blisters forming. Once there I asked a schoolgirl in her little, adorable sailor outfit which way to go and she pointed me to the left but not quite as left as I had previously gone.

Note: Every time I asked for help there was a light in their eyes, as if they lived for moments like random foreigners asking where to go to JR Ibaraki Station. It did make me feel better, though.

So I went a little less left and walked past the same temple from before. I was confused and tired, my legs jelly-fied (I'm not used to walking for hours on end with shoes not meant for walking hours on end while stressed out of my mind) so stupidly didn't take a picture of it. There were even Oni statues
http://www.obakemono.com/obake/oni/ (this is a great website if you're interested in Japanese folkloric beings called Bakemono or Youkai).

I had some doubt in my mind that I was going the right way (if you don't understand why, reread the story and use critical thinking), but then ... I heard it ... English. I walked past him at first but then I stopped and thought, "What if you are going the wrong way? How many times will this ever happen when lost?" So I went back and asked him. Luckily, he was headed the same way and I was on the right path. And finally I made it to JR Ibaraki Station around 9:08 (yeah, I know because I looked at my phone so that I could figure out how long it took for me to get home from there ... which I got home at like 9:34 or something).

Once I got home, my heels were bleeding all over the place with huge gashes in them from the heels of my shoes cutting into them. It was kind of weird because I've had these shoes for a long time and have never had this issue before. Maybe they are too old? I have a total of four large blisters which is four too many. They don't hurt, but they make me anxious because one wrong move and they will most definitely hurt. Also, they are gross. I had nightmares of being lost in Osaka all night long and when I woke up it hurt to walk and my feet had swollen from pain most likely. At least, I couldn't put normal sneakers on that I know fit. I had to wear the same shoes from before, but I bent the heel down and walked on them all day. Tomorrow I guess I'll have to wear my sandals, but they had caused two of the blisters in the first place (yesterday just made them worse). My heels are worse than the blisters so I suppose I've been forced to choose the better of two evils. There has been puss coming from the gashes in my heels. It'll be okay though. They will heal.

And there is my long, drawn-out story that best explains how I felt during the situation. It was very upsetting, but I made it home. I had been worried that my host mom would be mad or worried as I've heard that host moms in Japan can be difficult to please and don't like it when you come home late and hadn't told them. When I walked in the door, my host mom goes, "Did you make lots of friends today?" And I was very happy that I ended up in a great host family. I told her that I got lost and she helped bandage my feet up only for those bandaids to fall off the next day because humidity hates bandaids.

So there we have it. Other than that, orientation is happening and there isn't much else to report than that. Here's a list of things I've noticed or things about Japan:

1. Japan has weird commercials but so does France and the United States.
2. I've noticed that a lot of Japanese girls walk pigeon-toed and I feel less self-conscious about my pigeon-toed feet.
3. Everyone reads on the trains. In France everyone was on their phone or listening to music, but here everyone has a book ... or they are napping.
4. I saw some mannequins today with anime eyes. They were really weird since their bodies had normal proportions but their heads were big. It was strange.
5. I saw a café called 'Café de Crier' which in English is like ... uh ... 'Shouting Café' or I prefer 'Café of Screams'. Crier means to cry/shout usually meaning to scream, not tear crying.

Until Next Time~