NICK: Kochi kochi kochi
Trip Start
Jan 25, 2006
1
57
106
Trip End
Ongoing
Kochi,
Japan
Sunday, July 16, 2006
We took the bus 2.5 hours to the south side of Shikoku (the island we're living on) and found our small, inexpensive hotel room that was super close to the train station - which was nice since it was so hot with our backpacks. The hotel was called "the Los Inn" which didn't make much sense since I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be in spanish. Turns out they just didn'thave the whole name of the hotel on the outside: the Los Angeles Inn.
They probably didn't realize how expensive the exterior sign would be when they originally named it.
Anyways, we started off and having seen how small the city is from the bus, we decided to walk. There was a dark gray and ominous looking bus with speakers on the top and Japanese flags all over it parading thru the streets. I don't know exactly what the bus is about, but Ashleigh said that Rachel says that they're buses that talk about kicking out foreigners and love Japan or some junk like that. I don't know - I've included video so if you speak japanese you can comment on what they say (hint hint, mom)
Anyways, there were two of these buses driving around, a gray one and a white one.
I wish Japan would get some laws for noise ordinance.
Kochi is famous for it's open air markets on Sunday. You could buy anything from fruits and vegetables, toys, knives, souvenirs, cellphone danglybobbydealies, and shaved ice.
01 Our apartment building from the bus
It was like any other open air market, but it was a few kilometers long.As we walked along we ended up in Kochi's Gintengai (which I guess means golden market street, so there must be other cities besides Matsuyama and Kochi with Gintengai streets) where there were a sport load of people standing around in costumes.
These people were putting on a festival with some traditional wooden clackers (I don't know what they're called in Japanese). They hold the clackers in their hand and dance to the music. It's kind of fun, they seem to be large groups of teenagers - possibly high school clubs that do this dancing thing, tho there were some older performers.
After wandering around some more, we decided to go to one of the few original castles left in Japan. Most Japanese castles were destroyed during WWII by carpet bombing, but were rebuilt out of concrete in the 50's. The concrete ones aren't the same.
This castle is 6 stories high and has a really nice garden and moat with huge (not kidding) Carp in it. The largest carp we saw must have been about 28 inches or so. The first time we saw the biggest one, we only saw it's monstrous head poking out of the water. It then came along the side and we could see how mammoth this thing was.
Anyways, we went in and met a woman who accosted Ashleigh (I guess I look Japanese enough for them not to take an interest) and asked her if she wanted a tour guide of the castle. She's a high school English teacher in Kochi who volunteers at the castle to practice her English and to welcome foreigners to Kochi.
02 Some village
She was a really nice woman.She talked about the history of the castle, the meaning of the lion-fish on top of the structure, and the story of the two lovers that are immortalized in Kochi - Kazutoyo, some chick, and their horse were all part of the story.. I forgot the woman's name, since I'm bad at them.
During our tour the woman talked about some of the ALTs* that she had at her school. She commented that she sees a lot of drama from them regarding boyfriends/girlfriends and having them at home and in Japan, etc. I guess it must be pretty interesting to see..
*(Assistant Language Teachers thru the JET program, what most foreigners usually do when they come to Japan - help out in the junior high schools. The JET program is sponsored by the Japanese government. We hear these acronyms a lot since most people assume that we're ALTs.)
Afterwards, we sat around the park, swatting at mosquitos and had some juice drinks to cool off in the heat. It was really a nice day, not terribly hot in the shade.
Our guide book suggested that we try some Katsuo tataki (pan-seared bonito where the outside is cooked, but the inside is raw. This is supposedly the specialty of Kochi. Since we found some small Ma'n'Pa shop, we thought it would be a good place to get some authentic tataki. If you ever get the chance, try some, it's like sushi/cooked fish on top of rice. A really nice flavor.
This really isn't one of my better written entries. bleh.
*****UPDATE******
from my mom:
Few points on your blog (#57 entry)
Gray bus says something about a group fighting for the proper rules.
White bus says about national environment protection organization.
The video talks about the education focusing on terrorism and gang activity is given to kids somewhere. (I think they oppose that.)
Gintengai is Silver, not Gold. Kintengai is Gold.
*****END OF UPDATE*****
