Movin' on down

For the past 12 months, I lived in an apartment building for international students, researchers and professors at Kyoto University. It wasn't the lap of luxury but it had a few perks.

My sheets were laundered every Wednesday. I had a huge balcony, a kitchen with counter space, rent that was so heavily subsidized it was practically free, my own washing machine and friends on every floor (except for the fourth floor. I never met anyone who lived on the fourth floor).

But, like all good things, it came to an end last week. The maximum tenancy at Kyoto University's international house is one year. After that, you're on your own. You have to move out and find a "real" apartment. Finding an apartment in Kyoto is both easier and more difficult than you might think.

The easy part is that there are apartment rental agencies all over the city. You simply go to one in the neighbourhood you want to live in. You meet with an agent and tell them what you're looking for. They then search for suitable apartments in your price range and drive you around from apartment to apartment until you find one you like. They do all of the work and it is completely free. You can go to as many agencies as you like and view as many apartments as you like. It's all very polite, professional and efficient. There is no pressure to sign a contract.

The difficult part is that you have to do all of this in Japanese. You also have to sign a rental contract that is written in Japanese. So you may not know exactly what you're agreeing to if your Japanese isn't up to scratch.

The other sticky issue is that many landlords demand a lot of money upfront. Two months rent, a security deposit, plus "key money" (key money is basically bribe money. It costs around $1,000 and it's considered a "gift" to the landlord for allowing you to live in the apartment. You can ask for housing that doesn't require key money but this will limit your options).

I decided I wanted to stay in the same neighbourhood, which made searching for an apartment a lot easier. I live in the northeast corner of Kyoto, which is considered an undesirable area because it is 3 km from the university and 5 km from downtown. A lot of Japanese people consider these distances "far" and "inconvenient." So rents are a lot cheaper up here. Which is ridiculous when you consider there is a train station and a subway station nearby. Not to mention a huge park with great hiking and running trails through the mountains. There are lots of little shops, restaurants and grocery stores. It would be a highly desirable neighbourhood in Canada. It's the Japanese equivalent of High Park in Toronto or Kitsilano in Vancouver (but with less blond hair, breast implants and Lululemon).

The average rent for a one-room apartment in Kyoto is about $400 a month. And by "one room" I literally mean one room. You cook, eat, sleep and work all in the same tiny room. An apartment with a separate bedroom is twice as expensive.

I found a one-room apartment for $300 a month. The best part is that almost everything is included in the rent. I have free electricity, free wireless internet and a free rooftop laundry room. (The rooftop laundry room is awesome. I'm totally going to have a party up here.)





The apartment is clean and quiet (except for the dog across the street, who barks and whines incessantly). The only catch is that the kitchen is the size of a photo booth with absolutely no counter space.



And the toilet is a squat toilet.


And, um, there's no shower in the apartment. But there are shared showers on the other side of the building, past the bike parking area. On the downside, the showers are coin-operated. On the upside, I don't have to clean them. It's like staying in a hotel! A really cheap hotel!



The strange thing is, none of this bothers me. If I were living in a one-room apartment with a squat toilet and shared showers back home, I would probably be in the depths of depression. But only because I would be surrounded by friends who own houses or rent large apartments. I would feel "poor" by comparison.

But over here, everyone is in the same boat. All of my friends are on the same scholarship, so we are all forced to share the same standard of living. We all live in one-room apartments. We all pull in the same income each month. Some of my friends live in places where they share kitchens and toilets. I feel rich by comparison. It's all relative.

So here it is. My new home. (Can you spot the items from Ikea?)


I haven't met the neighbours yet. They live in a traditional-style Japanese house. With barbed wire. They don't seem very friendly. I'm starting to suspect I live next door to the yakuza.


My landlord, on the other hand, is incredibly sweet. He is a huge road cycling enthusiast and a former triathlete. I think a major factor in his decision to rent the apartment to me was the fact that we both share a love of bikes. We ended up talking about cycling for an hour when he showed me the apartment. One of his dreams is to ride across Canada. He saw a TV show about Canada once and has wanted to visit ever since. Maybe that explains the cute nameplate he made me for my mailbox.


It may not be as nice as my apartment at Kyoto University's international house. There's no laundry service and no friends on every floor. But I'm getting used to it. It's home. For now.

IKEA in Japan

I went to Ikea for the first time last week. I didn't even know there was an Ikea in Japan. I'm not even sure how I found out there was an Ikea in Japan. Maybe I read about it online or maybe someone mentioned it in passing. Either way, I went to Ikea for the first time last week.

Ikea in Japan is exactly like Ikea anywhere else. This was somewhat disappointing because I was expecting it to be less Swedish and more Japanese. I thought it would follow the McDonald's model, which is to say import the original but add a few items on the menu that can only be found in Japan (like the shrimp burger and the egg burger, for example).

So I was expecting Ikea to be Ikea but with a Japanese twist. Futons instead of beds. Chopsticks instead of forks. Sushi instead of meatballs. But no. The Japanese Ikea did not deviate in any way from the Swedish original. Well, except for the smoking area. I don't remember seeing a smoking area next to the entrance of a Canadian Ikea.



Despite being located in an industrial area in the middle of nowhere (just like in Canada!), the store is extremely easy to get to (not like in Canada!). Ikea offers a free shuttle bus from one of the busiest train stations in downtown Osaka.




The bus was one big moving advertisement for Ikea. Inside the bus, there was an instructional video on how to shop at the store. I think the fact that there's a right way to shop at the store (following the arrows with your little pencil and piece of paper) partly explains its success in Japan. Ikea is already very Japanese. There is a correct way of doing things, there are lots of instructions and explanations, everything is very orderly and clean, there is a proper route that you have to follow. The store is practically a microcosm of Japan.

The bus also contained several ads featuring the Ikea cafe, which were meant to stimulate your appetite during the 25-minute ride so that by the time you finally arrive at the store the first thing you want to do is order up a plate of meatballs with lingonberry sauce. (Which is exactly what we did.)




The menu contained standard Ikea fare, except for the green tea lattes and Japanese curry. The rest of the Japanese Ikea experience was exactly the same as the Canadian Ikea experience. There were the same showrooms containing the same furniture. The same marathon floorplan winding its way through model living rooms, bathrooms and bedrooms. The same massive marketplace. The same airplane-hangar-sized warehouse. And, finally, the same long line ups at the checkout counters.


I picked up a few items for my new apartment (I'm moving on Thursday. But that's a whole other story). Of course, furnishing my apartment was just part of the reason I went to Ikea. I really just wanted to see if it was any different in Japan. And even though it wasn't any different from any other Ikea anywhere else, it was still very Japanese.

Stationmaster cats and goats

Regular readers of this blog may remember a post I wrote about a cat named Tama who was hired to be the stationmaster of a railway station in rural Japan.

Tama has an office, wears a uniform and greets commuters as they come in and out of the station during rush hour. The cat has become so popular that the railway had to hire a human employee to assist the feline stationmaster. Tama has drawn in thousands of tourists from across the country and has single-handedly boosted the local economy by 1.1 billion yen.

In an attempt to copy the success of Tama, other railway stations in Japan are jumping on the "animal as stationmaster" bandwagon. There are now several cat stationmasters and at least one dog stationmaster. (The dog is a Yorkshire Terrier by the name of Maron, who works at a small railway station in northern Japan. He seems much more agreeable about wearing a full uniform than the cats. The cats only deign to wear the hats.)


In an effort to one-up the kitties, the latest animal to be appointed to the role of stationmaster is a goat called Koma. Koma reports for duty at Uzen-Komatsu station. No word yet on how that's working out.


These animals don't just laze around the station or sleep on the job. These pets are put to work. They work six days a week, eight hours a day. They pose for pictures and entertain their fans. They give TV interviews and attend local events as VIPs. They're treated like real employees. They even have to go to meetings.

Some PR people recently arranged a meeting between Kotora (the feline stationmaster of Kichigahara station) and Bus (the feline stationmaster of Aizu Ashinomaki Onsen station). Unfortunately, the meeting didn't go very well. The cats hated each other.


Only in Japan!

A very Canadian summer

When I was back home for a visit a few weeks ago, a friend asked me what I missed most about Canada when I was in Japan. We were driving through the streets of Toronto at the time and it hit me that what I missed most about Canada was right there in front of me.

"I miss this," I said, as we drove through city blocks lined with tiny restaurants serving cheap food from around the world. Indian, Thai, Greek, Jamaican, Korean, Ethiopian, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Lebanese. Ten different countries in two city blocks.

I miss being able to have a burrito for breakfast, a falafel for lunch and souvlaki for dinner. I miss Red River cereal. I miss blending in with the crowd. I miss being able to speak English with everyone I meet. I miss being able to read the cereal box while I eat breakfast. I miss Grape Nuts. I miss the wide-open spaces, the small big cities and the unspoiled wilderness. I miss George Stroumboulopoulos. I miss Tim Hortons.


Don't get me wrong. I love Japan. But I often feel like an outsider living on the fringes of a world I am part of but don't really belong to. I am not Japanese and I will never be Japanese. I am treated with respect and kindness by most of the people I encounter. But the polite smiles and deep bows only serve to highlight the distance between us.

So it was nice to get out of Japan and go home for a few weeks. I spent a little bit of time in Vancouver and a lot of time in Toronto. It's funny how you notice things that you never really paid attention to until after you've been out of the country for a while. Take the liquor store in Ontario, for example. The stores are nicely laid out with helpful signs for each section: Ontario wine, B.C. wine, Australian wine, South African wine, Chilean wine, fine scotches, Japanese sake. And then, the one section I had never noticed before: The Party Zone. Classy!


Of course, no summertime visit to Toronto would be complete without a trip to the CNE. I like the CNE for the atmosphere, the free samples and the mini donuts. I hate the rides. I do not look at the rides and see fun, thrills and excitement. I look at the rides and see nausea, terror and the possibility of serious injury or death. (I like the ferris wheel, though. Ferris wheels are nice and slow and you get great views from the top.)






My sister was getting frustrated that I wouldn't go on any of the rides (not including the ferris wheel. We rode it twice). So I made a deal with her. I agreed to go on one ride as long as I got to choose it. I looked around the midway and immediately ruled out anything that went upside down. I also nixed anything that was more than five feet above the ground and moved at a high speed. Roller coasters were out of the question. We were too tall for the kiddie rides. The haunted house was too lame. The only option was the tilt-a-whirl.

The tilt-a-whirl didn't look so bad from a distance. But appearances can be deceiving. I knew I had made a mistake when, just before the ride was about to begin, a greasy carny walked over to our car, gave my sister and I a pair of high fives and yelled, "ARE YOU READY TO GO FAST?!?!"

"No!" I said in a panicky voice. "We want to go slow!"

But it was too late. The platform started moving. We were going around and around in circles, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Parts of the platform were raised and lowered, which caused the cars to spin in different directions and at different speeds. The cars would swing and snap unexpectedly. Not only was the platform rotating in one giant circle, but our car was spinning wildly at the same time. I started to feel violently ill. I couldn't focus my eyes. We were being spun around and around and around and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

"Let me off!" I screamed. "I'm going to be sick!"

But no one listened. The ride seemed to last an eternity, with me struggling not to vomit all over my sister's lap. I can't believe people actually pay money to put themselves through this type of torture and they actually enjoy it. I almost wept with relief when it was over.


After the madness of the CNE, my family escaped to Georgian Bay for two days. We went to the town of Lafontaine, which is where my grandfather's side of the family is from. The Marchildons were part of a group of families from Quebec who moved to the area in the 1800s. It's still very much a francophone community today (it's also the only place in Canada where every second mailbox has the name "Marchildon" written on it). The lake is one of the most beautiful places in the country.

We drove up to Georgian Bay with my dad's canoe tied to the roof of the car (does it get any more Canadian than that?). I should explain that the canoe is my dad's pride and joy. He built it himself, out of wood and entirely by hand. The canoe is a work of art (he told me to say that. He also told me to put a picture of it up on my blog. Here you go, Dad!).










One of my favourite things about Toronto is the TTC. I love the way the subway stations smell. They have a distinctive smell. If I had to describe it, I would say it's a mixture of old newspapers, stale air, dirt and metal. You're hit with this smell as soon as you walk through the doors. The smell hasn't changed in 30 years. There's something comforting about it. It smells like home.

Stranded in Seattle

I have lousy luck when it comes to flying.

I have been stuck in Detroit due to a blizzard, endured eight hours of violent turbulence all the way to Europe, abandoned in Toronto when a pilot called in sick and now find myself stranded in Seattle thanks to a typhoon in Tokyo.

I was supposed to be landing in Japan right now but am holed up at the Holiday Inn across from the Seattle airport instead. My flight was cancelled. All flights were cancelled. Absolutely no one is flying in or out of typhoon-battered Tokyo today.

There's nothing to do but wait for the storm to pass and flights to open up. I could be here a day. I could be here two days. I could be here three days. No one really knows. I'm on standby for a flight tomorrow but standby is a crapshoot at best.

The worst part of it is that I'm paying for this little holiday at the Holiday Inn out of my own pocket because the airlines don't cover expenses for flights that are cancelled due to weather conditions. Most airlines will bend over backwards to rebook you when a flight is cancelled due to mechanical reasons. But when a flight is cancelled due to poor weather? Tough shit, you're on your own. No food vouchers. No hotel vouchers. No heroic efforts to rebook you on the next available flight.

So I'm having an impromptu vacation in Seattle, whether I want to or not. Or, more specifically, I'm having an impromptu vacation at the Seattle airport, whether I want to or not. Seattle is one of my favourite cities but the area around the Seattle airport is nothing like Seattle. It's pretty much like every other airport wasteland the world over. I know this because I went for a run earlier this afternoon.

My run took me along congested six-lane roads, underneath busy highways, past a Denny's, a Taco Bell, a bunch of gas stations and a dozen bland, boxy airport hotels catering to crowds of people just passing through. It could have been Anywhere, America.

But there are worse places to be stuck. Love it or loathe it, America is a fascinating country. It's so different from Japan. It's probably the polar opposite of Japan. Americans are so assertive and warm and friendly. And, man, do they ever love to talk!

It's culturally accepted to have random conversations with random people, to offer a hearty "hello" to strangers, to chat up everyone and anyone. I don't know how to describe it. Americans just seem so confident and open. Like they'd happily tell you your life story if you asked. I like it. It's refreshing.

When I was in the two-hour line up at the Seattle airport trying to rebook my flight, an American woman ahead of me chatted me up and demanded I use her cellphone to call the airline to figure out what my options were. The airline representative rebooking my flight told me all about his ex-girlfriend who lived in Vancouver and his favourite bars on Granville Street. A guy working at the Holiday Inn told me he loved the colour of my t-shirt, which prompted a 10-minute conversation about how much we both love bright colours. And on and on and on. I've been making friends left, right and centre ever since I stepped on American soil. It's just so different from Japan.

That's not to say it's some sort of extroverted utopia. There are some things about America I will never understand. The way no one seems to walk anywhere, for example. I went to the front desk at the Holiday Inn to ask where the nearest grocery store was.

"There's a 7-11 at the top of the hill," the woman working behind the desk told me.

I told her that wasn't exactly what I was looking for. She told me there wasn't really anything else within walking distance. I wasn't about to give up that easily.

She hummed and hawed and said the 7-11 was the closest thing in walking distance. But that it was still pretty far. It's funny how people define "walking distance" in different ways. For me, walking distance is about 45 minutes each way. For her, walking distance was no more than five minutes each way.

She finally admitted that there was a proper grocery store nearby but that I'd have to zig and zag through a few streets to get there and that I'd probably get lost. And that it was definitely more than five minutes away. She refused to give me directions and pointed me again to the 7-11 at the top of the hill.

The underlying message seemed to be that I was both too lazy and stupid to walk more than five minutes. But when in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? So I caved and went to the 7-11. I bought some snacks (oh man, do they ever have awesome snacks in America). I tried to buy some booze but got carded (didn't have any ID on me). Walked back to the hotel. The whole trip took about three minutes in total.

I'm heading back to the airport tomorrow (the hotel, by the way, is directly across from the airport and it would probably take less than five minutes to walk there but there is a shuttle bus to ferry guests back and forth) in an attempt to fly standby. I don't have high hopes.

I have lousy luck when it comes to flying.

Climbing Mt. Fuji

Two weeks ago, four friends and I finally mounted Mt. Fuji. It may be the highest peak in Japan but reaching the summit is not as impressive as it sounds. That's because "climbing" Mt. Fuji involves little more than walking up a path so well-marked and beaten down it may as well be paved.

Not only is it not physically demanding but the trail is also lined with vending machines, toilets and mountain huts selling hot coffee and souvenirs.

Hiking Mt. Fuji isn't exactly a wilderness experience but it is good, campy fun!

We left Kyoto early Sunday afternoon. Three trains, one bus and several hours later, we arrived at Mt. Fuji's shockingly cold fifth station. We quickly abandoned our plan to hike in shorts and t-shirts and put on every layer of clothing we brought with us. This included the cheap plastic raincoats we bought at the last minute at a nearby 100 yen store (Japan's version of the dollar store, except way more awesome).


Everyone was a bit panicky about whether we'd be warm enough. Except Seema. Seema tied plastic bags around her feet and wore two raincoats over her fur coat (yes, a real fur coat). We looked a bit ridiculous in our ragtag outfits compared to the Japanese hikers who were all wearing gortex rain gear, technical hiking boots and steel-framed backpacks containing bottles of oxygen. They looked like they were about to summit Mt. Everest, not Mt. Fuji.

We started our ascent at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday evening. This is the way most people hike up the mountain. You start late in the afternoon or early evening. Hike for a few hours. Spend the night at a hut halfway up the mountain. Wake up at 2 a.m. and hike the rest of the way to the summit to catch the sunrise. Linger around at the top for a bit. Buy some souvenirs, mail a few postcards. And then hike all the way back down to the fifth station in one go.

This is how it's usually done and this is how we were planning on doing it too. We wanted the full Mt. Fuji experience. So we started our ascent in the dark with only headlights to guide the way.


We had no trouble following the path since it's roped off most of the way up. And the sections that aren't roped off can be easily found by following the large white arrows painted on the volcanic rocks. It took about three hours to reach the eighth station.

The hike is divided into 10 stations. Each station has pay toilets and a mountain hut where you can spend the night or buy food and water (the higher up the mountain you go, the more expensive the water becomes. A bottle of water costs 300 yen at the fifth station and 500 yen at the tenth station. It's a nice little racket).

Each hut has room for about 100 people. The sleeping arrangements are pretty basic. Everyone sleeps side-by-side on futons on the floor, packed in like sardines. There's not a whole lot of sleeping going on since most people are tramping in and out throughout the night. But it's all part of the Mt. Fuji experience.

We went to bed at around 11 p.m. and planned to get up at 2 a.m. in order to catch the sunrise from the summit. But at 2 a.m., the rain started coming down in sheets. We didn't want to embark on a cold, wet, dark hike so we decided to skip the sunrise and sleep in. Luckily, the rain stopped by 6:30 a.m. and we got moving half an hour later (they kick you out of the huts at 7:00 a.m. so a later start was out of the question).


The hike to the summit was uneventful and straightforward. It was an easy hike so we focused on having fun. Highlights included buying hot coffee from a vending machine at the ninth station.



Lowlights included getting a pounding headache. I don't think anyone would be in danger of getting a serious case of altitude sickness on Mt. Fuji but at 3,776 metres (or 12,288 feet) high, you can definitely feel the effects of the thin air.

We saw quite a few Japanese hikers sucking back bottled oxygen as they climbed toward the top. It seemed ridiculously unnecessary.

We reached the summit after three hours of relatively easy hiking. Unfortunately, there was nothing to see but a wall of white fog. It was also extremely cold -- the mercury was hovering around five degrees. And then the sky opened up and the rain started pounding down. We ran into the large shelter on top to warm up. It would have been a nice place to hang out except all of the other hikers were lighting up cigarettes. Nothing says good wholesome fun like breathing in second-hand smoke at the top of a mountain.


We didn't linger for long. We all had headaches from the altitude and a serious storm was brewing. We wanted to get down before it got worse. The temperature was dropping rapidly and the rain was starting to freeze. The wind was whipping wildly, shredding exposed skin with ice pellets that felt like tiny daggers. It was a pretty miserable hike down.

Of course, the wind, the rain and the ice wouldn't have been a problem if we were dressed properly for the weather. I was drenched from head to toe and the only way to stay warm was to run down the mountain. We must have made it down in record time.


Would I do it again? Absolutely. But I'd plan it around a sunny weekend so that I could see the view from the top. And even though the hike is easy, the weather conditions can be challenging. So next time I'd skip the dollar store and bring proper gear.

You can find the rest of my photos on my flickr page.