Universal Fun and Life With “Gaij” Rides

Life with “gaij” or “gaijin” rides (also known as bicycles) is so much better. This lovely little term was coined by our friends Colin and Laura and basically sums up how fabulous it is to have a bike in this country. Scott and I also concluded this fact today after purchasing some sweet, sweet used bikes from a shop just a short walk from our nearest subway station. After some incredible misfortunes with trying to get our hands on a bike, we were thrilled to finally have them! Let me elaborate...(or should I say, go off on a tangent...?)

When English teachers leave Japan, they usually post “Sayonara Sale” posters in the schools to let other teachers know what they’re selling. Items usually include furniture, microwaves, bicycles, and other random stuff. One day at work, Scott spotted a flyer and noticed that a dude was selling two bikes for 8000 yen. Perfect, we thought. So I emailed the guy that night (let’s give him the pseudonym “Brad”) and told him we wanted the bikes. Shortly after, Brad emailed me back and confirmed that both bikes were still available, but wouldn’t be ready for pick-up until the third week of November because he still needed to get around. I wrote Brad back and told him to email me when he wanted us to come get them. He agreed. With the fabulous deal he was offering, we decided we’d wait it out instead of going to buy bikes. Just a little side note...the first email correspondence happened in late October.

So lo and behold, when the third week in November rolled around, I still hadn’t heard from him. Scott and I were both getting a little nervous. We decided to wait a few more days before contacting him. After all, moving can be a hassle, right? In the meantime, I had received another full shift at a school and as luck would have it, I was going to be taking Brad’s shift. What could be more perfect? I could actually see him in person and ask when we could pick up the bikes. This shift happened on Saturday. I met Brad at the school, watched all his classes, witnessed what a horrible teacher he was, and received absolutely no guidance about his students. He was a complete space cadet. Later on, when there was some down-time I mentioned that I had emailed him about the bikes. He seemed to know what I was talking about and then proceeded to say, “Uhhhh ya, I think we still have the bikes.” I just couldn’t get a concrete answer out of him it seemed and I had a feeling he didn't have them anymore. As I was leaving at the end of the day, I said goodbye and told him I’d email him about when to pick up the bikes.

The minute after I got home, I sent a short little email to him. The next day, I got an email back saying he didn't have the bikes.

I don’t know what frustrated me more—the fact that he didn’t tell me he didn’t have both bikes, like he originally said (when I could obviously tell there was something up at work) or that fact that Scott and I could have had bikes three weeks ago! Anyway, Scott drafted an email and sent it to him. Let’s just say, we didn’t buy any of his bikes after all that kafuffle!

So, as you can see, our bike search started off on a rather depressing note, but in the end it all worked out! Our new rides are seriously granny bikes, complete with large baskets, bells, and curved handlebars. On our way home from purchasing our “gaij” rides today, Scott couldn’t help ringing his bell at every passing pedestrian. In our life before “gaij” rides, Scott and I were always angered by the squeaky brakes and how often riders would ring their bells if they wanted you to clear the sidewalk. Let’s just say, we had a lot of fun in our new role as bikers and will inevitably continue to do so! Having a bikes means we can explore the city and be able to get home late at night after the subways stop running. A bike would have been handy for our late-night/early-morning karaoke adventure on Thursday.

Since this Friday was a national holiday, a bunch of us went out on Thursday night after work to a karaoke bar. An all-you-can-drink karaoke bar. We had an awesome time, sang some classic tunes, drank too many “momo fizzes” (peach fizzes) and “birus” (beers) and, as always, exchanged funny stories from work. Speaking of which, I had a private lesson with a fairly advanced student at work recently and we were just chatting about food so I asked him what he ate for breakfast. He told me he ate toast and coffee. I asked him if he put anything on his toast, like butter or jam, and he said that he ate it dry. Here’s the kicker...when I told him to try butter on his toast, he said that he likes it, but can’t buy it because his wife will eat it and get fat! He proceeded to gesture getting fat with his hands, which confirmed he wasn’t joking. Anyway, it was pretty funny, especially because a lot of the women here are so tiny and overly-conscious about what they eat.

Anyway, because we stayed up so late, Scott and I ended up catching the first train home...at 5 am. We went to bed immediately after and decided that Universal Studios was a no-go since we’d have to leave the house at 8 am anyway. Surprisingly, we didn’t sleep in too much on Friday. We decided to venture to the city of Kobe, which is 30 minutes west of Osaka. It’s a beautiful city and many of you might be familiar with the name from the devastating earthquake that occurred in 1995, also known as the Great Hanshin Earthquake. Scott had visited Kobe the week before with Colin, Laura, Naomi, and some other new teachers on his day off, but loved it so much that he wanted to go back and play tour-guide for me. Although we arrived in Kobe in the late afternoon, we still had plenty of time to walk the streets, see the Chinatown district, explore Kobe’s harbour and much more.

At the harbour, we decided to go up the big port tower to get a view of the city at night fall and it was absolutely breathtaking. At the port, we also walked around the earthquake memorial. Several granite stones were arranged in a pattern to emulate the re-construction of the city. The stones also had pictures from the aftermath of the earthquake and captions (in English—yay!) There was also a preserved area from the devastating effects of the earthquake where viewers could see tilted streetlights and cracked concrete stones that had once been part of a park partially submerged underwater. Although the earthquake only lasted for about 20 seconds, it took over 6,000 lives and cost over $200 billion USD in damages. Scott and I both thought it was a wonderful tribute to the people who lost their lives, their loved ones, and for the whole country to remember that fateful day that went down in history.

On Sunday, Scott and I went to Universal Studios Japan, which is about 20 minutes from our place by subway. In retrospect, we were glad we waited to go on Sunday because the weather was fabulous and the park wasn’t as busy because it wasn’t a national holiday. As soon as I saw the front gates, it immediately reminded me of Disney World. The whole park was decked out for Christmas and thousands of people sported Elmo, Hello Kitty, or Snoopy ears and were trying to sing along with the English Christmas carols. The park was much smaller than we had anticipated, but there were still lots of things to do, including some excellent rides!

The first ride we went on was Spiderman 3D—I bet you can guess who chose it! We waited in line for about 90 minutes and finally got to the front of the line. The rush of excitement from dropping several storeys of a building was well-worth the wait. Spiderman speaking in Japanese; however, was not so cool. Even though most of the rides were in Japanese, we got the gist of what was going on. After our first ride, Scott and I decided to make the splurge and get Express Pass Booklets for 4500 yen each. The booklets are basically coupons that allow you to go to the front of the line on the seven most popular rides and attractions. We both thought it was worth the money because we got through all the rides in the park in about four or five hours. Originally, we thought we would have to come back to go on the rides we missed (and have to pay the 5800 admission fee again), but the Express Passes let us do them all in a day! Naturally, our favourite ride of the whole day was a roller coaster called Hollywood Dream: The Ride. It was sweet because the seats had headphones built into them and you could choose your own background music, which made the experience that much cooler. We loved this ride so much that we went on it twice—once during the day and once at night! Before heading home, we grabbed some good old fashioned North American grease at the Hard Rock Cafe.

In other news, Scott and I are on some company websites. Check out this, this, and this to see our smiling, yet extremely cheesy faces!

When I showed Scott my picture on the last link listed above, he asked me why I looked so bitter. Guess who I was in the picture with? Brad—the blondie with the shaggy hair on the left. Haha. Even though things didn’t work out with Brad’s bikes, it’s all good because we finally have some great "gaij" rides of our own!

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Hope your lives are exciting, but also relaxing too! We miss you!
xoxo

Jo & Scott