Some basics for living in Japan

Some typical stairs in Japan

Let's say you've come to Japan either to study, to work or as a tourist, and you fell madly in love with this place. Or you felt like this was home to you.

You want to live here.

So you do the necessary paperwork, you find a decent job here that'll pay and treat you well (more on that in the future) and you even managed to get yourself an apartment (maybe more on that in the future, too).

Now what?

How do you get in good with the locals of your area so that they feel actual sadness should you ever decide to move? How do you become a model neighbor here?

Here are some tips.

New to the neighborhood? 
You just moved into a new apartment, and you want to get off on the right foot.

Buy small gifts
All supermarkets have a section for little boxed gifts. Pick out some generic ones (senbei rice crackers and such). Have one for any neighbors living beside you, one box for the people living above you and one box for the people living below you.

Go say hi
If you can't speak Japanese, you can at least attempt to convey your warm wishes to the neighbor by smiling and giving them the small gift with a bow. Gesture toward your apartment and say hello. Do the best you can, and your efforts will be well received.

If you can speak Japanese, tell them you just moved in, here's a small gift, and apologize for all the noise and fuss you've either brought or will bring when moving in. It's noisy and annoying hearing people haul a fridge up a set of stairs so apologize for it. Also apologize for any future transgressions you may have while in the apartment, such as leaving music on that's too loud or, if you have children or pets, anything they might do.

Say hi to them when you see them
If you see a neighbor getting their mail or something, take the time to say hi to them. Talk about the weather for a minute, if you can and they seem open to it, call it a day.

If you get extra food, hand some around
If there's a neighbor who seems really friendly or nice, and you happen to have some extra food or something, offer it to them. Does one of your nice neighbors have kids? That means they don't have as much time or energy to cook, so if you happen to have extra food, take it over to them. Make sure you tell them what it is, of course.

Be nice 
Have an elderly neighbor? Stop by every now and then on your way to the grocery store and offer to pick them up something. Help carry their groceries and stuff. Help them get up the stairs if they look like they need help.

Just try to act like a decent human being with your neighbors, basically. Don't do it expecting anything in return, just do it because you want to be a model neighbor.




Don't be loud
College kids will never understand just how obnoxious they are.

I know the world is your oyster at that age and you figure your travels to Japan where you puked in the streets and continued karaoke night all the way back to your apartment or dorm have little impact on anything since you can leave it all behind when you go back home.

I know you think that, but you are wrong.

College kids fail to take into account, of course, those expats who are honest-to-God trying to live here.

Japanese people lump every foreigner into the same category, and when you see way too many foreign college kids or random tourists being loud and obnoxious, you start to equate foreigner with obnoxiously loud person.

Why is noise such a curse?

Reason: 
Japan is a small island, and space is an issue, especially in Tokyo. If you live out in the middle of no where and you have no neighbors whatsoever, then none of this applies to you. Just don't have frat house parties unless you don't mind the entire town gossiping about you.

But again, Japan is a small island nation with everyone crammed into the big cities. This makes space and personal privacy sacred, and you violating something so sacred by being loud and obnoxious is completely unforgivable.

This means you will be branded as loud and obnoxious before you even get the keys to your apartment.

You must dispel this assumption by being the opposite.

Test out your walls 
Find five minutes in the day when you know your neighbors are home, and listen. Can you hear them talking? If you can hear them, they can hear you. A lot of the walls in Japan are very thin (with older and cheaper apartments, this is basically a given).

Don't yell 
Just make it a habit of yours to not yell so much. I know fights with loved ones and such can lead to yelling, but make those the exceptions rather than the rule. If you want to be loud because your soccer team or baseball team did something right, go to a nearby izakaya pub or a sports bar and yell along with people who would like to hear you get so riled up about sports.

Keep your music and TV down 
Even if your walls are thick, try to keep music at a reasonable volume. When it gets past 8 p.m., try not to listen to music even at a reasonable volume. Same goes for the TV.

Don't clean past 7 p.m.
That basically means don't run your washing machine or vacuum past those hours. Just don't do it. Also, don't do any construction (nailing things into walls) past 3 p.m. basically.

Don't be noisily drunk anywhere near where you live
If you feel the urge to be drunken and obnoxious, do it somewhere far from home, then hail a cab that will take you right up to your apartment and try you best to make it all the way into your home without puking or talking loudly.




Don't violate trash laws 
I know in America, at least, people can be pretty blase about trash. It all can just go straight into the same bin (although I know people who have their own compost heaps, too).

Japan's prefectures all have different ways of dealing with trash, and even cities within the prefectures differ. Whatever the rules of where you live, follow them. Worship them. Stick them on your fridge so you never forget.

I know from one homeowner that the homeowner's association (which everyone who owns a house nearby must join) has people in the neighborhood take turns being monitors of the trash. If someone fails to separate properly, and it could be anyone, the trash collectors just won't pick up the garbage. The person in charge for that time then must look through all the trash and figure out where someone went wrong, fix the problem and hope the garbage collectors will actually pick everything up next time.

So if you stick your Coca Cola bottle into the burnables trash and leave that trash with all the others, your Coke bottle will be the reason no one's trash got picked up. This is not a good way to make friends.

Apartment complexes vary in terms of strictness, but this is the number one complaint you'll likely see against foreigners living in Japan - their inability to sort their trash.

Reason:
Again, Japan is a very small and very overcrowded nation in its urban areas, which makes trash a huge, huge problem.

Here's what you can do

Just separate your trash 
If your area states plastic bottles (they're called PET bottles here, which is more scientific than calling them plastic bottles) and burnables should be separated, then separate them. Places like Yokohama have trash days for plastic bottles, plastics in general, and burnables. Separate those out, then.

Burnables?
This definition varies per city, but the guidebook on trash you usually get when moving into an apartment comes with illustrations for each category. Burnables is basically everything that doesn't fit into the categories listed in that guidebook. (There is usually a category for glass, metals and larger stuff like busted radios.)

Old or broken furniture? Call to get it picked up.
You will sometimes hear this slow-moving truck with a loudspeaker blaring about something, and these are people who come and pick up your busted fridge and washing machine - for a fee. But it's illegal to just dump your fridge on the side of the road, so don't do it. Flag down the slow-moving truck, instead.

Figure out your garbage days
Burnables, since it's the most common form of trash here, usually has two days of the week where people come and collect it. Rarer stuff like old batteries are once a month, usually. Check with that handy guidebook and figure out those dates. Don't bother putting out your trash one day late because the entire neighborhood will silently fume at you over it as the trash sits there...wasting away. Leave the garbage in your apartment, instead, until the next trash day.

Take the trash out early.
Don't take out your trash the night before. Take it out bright and early in the morning on the day it is to be picked up. And make sure you put it under the blue net or else the massive, massive crows of this country will have a field day.




Be polite and friendly to all
Everyone will be curious about you, so be as polite and friendly as humanly possible to absolutely everyone around you in that neighborhood. Always say good morning or good afternoon to people you regularly see (In Tokyo, there's no need to greet absolutely everyone you pass on the street. In small towns, greet absolutely everyone.).

There will be times when you're having a bad day, but still take time away from your bad day to greet people. You don't have to pretend to be happy, but still at least say hi.

When you take your trash out and you see someone nearby, say hello to them, too. Japanese people tend to just live in their apartments or houses without really meeting people around them too often, and taking out the trash is one of the few times when you can stop and say hello to someone you otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to.

Be nice to the dry cleaning people. They tend to know everyone nearby. Be nice to your doctor's and their receptionists because they know everyone, too. Just be polite.

The New Year in Japan

Traditional new year decorations

While Japan treats Christmas like America treats Valentine's Day, Japan treats bringing in the new year like it's Christmas and Thanksgiving in America.

Don't expect many stores or anything else to be open from around the 28th of December to the 7th of January. 

Run-up to New Year's Eve

This is not the time to attempt to go anywhere in Japan, especially via Shinkansen (the bullet train). Just give up all hope and stay wherever you are. 

I have braved riding the bullet train to Osaka and back in the run-up to the new year a few years back, and I spent the entire bullet train ride (about two hours) standing in the aisle. 

Everyone is trying to get to their hometown for the new year, you see. It's like Thanksgiving and Christmas all rolled into one. Married couples split their time between families just like in America, and everyone braces themselves for the moment when they have to be around their relatives for a few days. 

New Year's Eve

I noticed just this year that many people go absolutely berserk trying to get what is called "osechi." Osechi is a New Year's obentou lunchbox of extravagant proportions, and it's traditionally bought to give the women one day off from cooking. 

If you like a lot of sea food in your life and you don't mind putting things you've likely never seen before into your mouth, then osechi is for you. 

Many of my Japanese friends tell me, however, that osechi is way overpriced and not that delectable. 

Avoid going to places like Mitsukoshi on New Year's Eve unless you want to be swallowed alive by a massive crowd of people trying to pull together a good osechi box. 

After you've got your osechi, though, you go back home and disappear into your kotatsu (see previous entry), switch on your TV, and start powering through clementine oranges. 

Japan has the equivalent of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade - something incredibly lame but incredibly traditional for no other reason than the fact it's been on forever. 

It's called the Kouhaku Uta Gassen. I downloaded an app for this, and the app told me that this show was originally a radio program lasting one hour that first ran on January 3, 1951. 

The show pits male and female singers against one another, with men being called the white team and women being called the red team. (Kouhaku is a combination of kanji for red and white). 

Red and white: You'll maybe note lots of red and white in New Year's decorations. Wikipedia suggests red means life and/or victory in war while white means death and/or defeat in war. It's a nice balance to see victory and defeat, life and death interwoven as we bring in the new year.

What once was a one-hour show is now a behemoth running about four hours right up until 11:45 p.m. It runs on NHK, which is Japan's PBS without commercials, so it's four hours of nonstop singers who can't sing well and really scripted banter. 

While Kouhaku is pretty awful, it's also tradition to have it on in the background as you talk with your relatives, providing noise to fill all silence in conversations and a reason to strike up another one. ("Oh my God that singer's still alive?") 

Before midnight, you must eat at least a little bit of soba noodles. The tradition holds that you will have a long life if you eat these noodles, which are also long. It's a symbolic gesture. I'm not sure why you're like Cinderella and only have until midnight to eat soba, but there you are. 

After NHK's Kouhaku, the station does something I wish most of the world would consider doing - it rings in the new year very quietly. 

While New York City goes crazy after the ball drops and fireworks go off all over the place, NHK shows people lining up in the cold at their nearest shrine to pay respects in the new year come midnight. It's all quietly shown, with the narrator telling you about the particular shrine being shown and how it relates to this year (For example: A shrine near Mt. Ontake, a volcano which unexpectedly erupted last year and killed a ton of people). 

You kind of get sucked into this documentary-style viewing of various shrines all over Japan, and then suddenly you see a monk hitting a wooden plank against a massive metal bell, and at the upper left-hand corner of the screen are three number: 0:00 - midnight. And that's it. Suddenly it's 2015. 

I don't think I've ever greeted another year so peacefully before. 

New Year's Day

No one goes out and does anything on the first. You sit in your kotatsu (if you ever left it) and eat osechi and talk with your relatives more, or you just sleep. And you watch a ton of TV. Every single channel has an entire lineup of New Year's Day specials just waiting for you to zone out on. 

Of course, before dawn is a whole other story on New Year's Day. At midnight, like I wrote above, many people are out braving the cold at their nearest shrine. You wait in a long line, throw in a 5 yen coin (apparently 5 yen coins are lucky because you say 5 yen coin as "goen" which also means an endless circle), and pray for what you want to have happen in the new year. 

You also get your fortune on a piece of paper (omikuji), which tells you how your luck will be for the entire year. 

You can also get charms and amulets to ward off evil for a year (I love the arrows with no death-inducing ends to them. You hang them up in the highest part of your house, and they act as a weapon against evil demons. I think they look cool. You trade your arrow in every year for a new one - for a price of course). 

When you're done, you either pass out back at home or find a good spot to watch the first sunrise, which you should do at least once in your life. There's nothing, for example, quite like seeing the sun rise over Mt. Fuji on New Year's Day. 

Anyway, you spend New Year's Day either eating, drinking, watching TV or sleeping. 

That's why I recommend taking the time on the first to go to a shrine during the day. We went to Kamakura, and it was nearly empty because we were the only ones foolish enough to go out in the middle of the day on the first to pay our respects. 

After the New Year

Now is the time to go out shopping. There are jaw-dropping sales all over the place in Japan starting from the second and lasting until maybe January 4th, if you're lucky. 

A ton of people also go pay respects at shrines now if they didn't do it around midnight on the first. Don't try to go to a shrine now unless you don't mind waiting in the biting cold for long periods of time. 

Yes, now is the time for shopping in Japan. Forget Black Friday, this is Black Weekend in Japan, and I'm about to go out and be part of it. 

Hakone

Hakone

With the coming of fall comes the call to go outside and enjoy the decent weather before winter arrives. 

This year, we decided to go see Hakone. We went once in the middle of winter, and subsequently saw very little of the area. This time, it was near the beginning of October, and the weather was fantastic. 

The leaves were no where near changing, but you still could feel autumn in the air. 

Below, I offer a mini guide to some of the things you can do. 

About Hakone

The number one fact that shocked me about Hakone is that the entire thing, like Yellowstone National Park, is on top of a caldera. While I was assured the volcano hasn't erupted in thousands of years, I was not assured. 

That being said, because it's on top of a caledera, there are tons of natural hot springs for you to enjoy, and there's even a cable car that takes you to some spots that will remind you of Yellowstone with steam rising into the air all around you. 

Most Japanese love going to Hakone for its nature and for its hot springs. 

Getting to Hakone

My personal recommendation is just to drive there. It's entirely possible to get there by train and to go around on foot or by bus, but when everything is spaced out and everything closes by 5pm, a car really comes in handy. 

One of the trails available

Hiking
Hakone is great for all of its little hiking courses. We chose one from a Japanese guidebook, and it started off amazingly enough. It was this path made up of stones through the woods, and then suddenly it comes up to a freeway, and you're walking alongside passing cars. For the first ten minutes or so, though, the trail was fantastic. We went back to our car, drove up that freeway, and saw that the trail dipped back into patches of forest every now and then. So I think the best way to enjoy this particular path is half walking, half car. There were parking lots along the way for your car.

Hakone Shrine

Hakone Shrine
Just because Hakone is on top of what would appear to still be an active volcano doesn't mean there's no ancient shrine to enjoy. You can see one part of it in the first photo I put in this post, and here's a photo of the top of a massive set of stairs you have to climb to reach the main point of the shrine. As you can see from the line, it appears to be a really popular shrine.

If you're into shrines and getting your goshuin, then I recommend going here. Otherwise, it's a shrine you'd see anywhere else. It's worth going down to the lake to see the shrine's entrance right up against the water (photo opportunities galore) but that's about it for those mildly interested in shrines.

The pirate ship

Boat cruise
I saw this ship in the Japanese guidebook and completely glazed over the part that said "it's a pirate ship knockoff." I was under some hopefully deluded impression that it was an old, wooden ship you could actually ride on. There's such a ship docked in Minato Mirai in Yokohama, and I've always wanted to take a ride on it. Now was my chance.

So imagine my grand disappointment to realize that this is a ship made of plastic, and it has fake pirate stuff all over the place.

The good news is that you can take a boat trip that literally lasts 10 minutes and costs less than 400 yen on this thing, which is what we did. It was enough time to take photos (which is how I got that first photo in this post) and enjoy the scenery, and not enough time to realize just how cheesy the whole ship was.

There are, of course, longer courses available, and if you like cheesy stuff or have little kids with you who love pirates, then that's be worth it. If you just want to take a few photos from the lake without paying a fortune for a boat, take the 10 minute trip.

Climbing up to see more susuki

Enjoying susuki
I didn't know what these stalks were (wheat??) but it turns out they're called susuki, which is roughly translated to "silver grass" or "Japanese pampas grass." I'd never seen anything quite like it, so visiting a hillside covered in them was quite the sight to behold. There's a path available (for free) that takes you up the hillside right among the susuki.

Photo opportunities abound on the trail

As you can see, there are many a photo opportunity on your way up the hillside. It's a nice little trip up the hillside, and one best taken with your camera in tow.

Lounge of the Hyatt Regency Hakone

Having some tea

After all of your hiking, photo taking and riding fake pirate ships, there's no better time to sit down and have a nice cup of tea. Unfortunately, by the time we were ready for that, it was past 5pm, and everything in Hakone shuts down around then. 

Fortunately, we managed to find a hotel with a lounge that offers tea well past 5pm. The Hyatt Regency in Hakone. 

I thought they wouldn't let us into their lounge because we weren't hotel guests, but the entire staff treated us like we were, and while we parked our car, the staff member manning the front door had already called the lounge to alert them of our presence, and we had a table and waiter on hand by the time we got down to the lounge. It was all impressive staff work. 

The lounge was truly magnificent. If there was snow, I imagine you would never want to leave there, with its wooden interior, glowing fireplace and wall-high glass windows. The place was made for enjoying a hot cup of tea while looking out at the snow falling outside. It was peaceful enough for us in the beginning of October, so I hate to imagine December or January. We'd probably still be there, trapped in our extremely comfortable chairs, asking for another round of tea.

As we left (the bill, by the way, was astronomical for two orders of tea and one order of sandwiches...but such is the Hyatt Regency), the staff outside seemed concerned that we wanted to leave. 

"You'd like to leave...now?" said the staff member to us. 

"Um, yes," I said. 

Was this like a hotel of the damned, where you could never leave? Maybe that was why it'd been so comfortable - to render you unable to leave. 

The staff member fiddled with his hands while he looked out into the darkness beyond the hotel. He had a look of deep distress on his face.

"Ok, well you can go to your car quickly, but please be careful. There's an inoshishi out there."

"A what?" I said.

The staff member struggled for the English. 

"A...um...a wild boar. Big one." 

Oh. 

He guided us to our car in the parking garage as we saw two larger staff members trying to dissuade the wild boar from making itself at home near the hotel. 

A Shinto Wedding

A Shinto wedding

Despite having to wake up before 6 a.m. on my day off, and despite traveling over an hour to get to the shrine, I felt incredibly excited about what lay ahead.

One of my husband's best friends was getting married.

Not only that, it'd be a Shinto wedding.

And we were invited to that wedding.

I could not miss this.



Religion in Japan 
Shinto, in case you're not aware, is one of the religions Japan practices, probably the main one. The main belief of this religion is that there is a god in everything. Not just living things, but everything. (If you re-watch Pocahontas singing the beginning of "Colors of the Wind" in the Disney movie, you'll get the gist of it.)

I took a course on religions of Asia during college in preparation for Japan, and it was in this class that I learned what I now can only vaguely recall of Shinto, but I'm fairly certain it's because of this belief in everything having a god within it that Japan is pretty hardcore about just about many, many things. The rituals of a tea ceremony, for example, are not to be contended with.

However, as I talked to some of my husband's friends after the wedding, I heard them say that it was also because of this belief that they could so easily weave in and out of other religious practices.

There is a saying about Japan that you are born in Shintoism, you marry in Christianity, and you die in Buddhism. I heard this during my religion course, and our professor said that is because Shinto doesn't deal with death at all. Shinto cares about life. The Christianity part has a lot to do with Western culture seeping into Japanese life, and Buddhism is all about reincarnation and letting go of worldly possessions, which seems to make it fitting for death.

So if you're in Japan and you can't figure out if you're at a Buddhist temple or a Shinto shrine, look around for a red gate (torii) at the entrance (Shinto) and a cemetery (Buddhist).

My husband's friends said that Japan can do this kind of buffet style of religion thanks to Shintoism. Because everything has a god in it, you should be open-minded to as much as possible because everything is sacred (I would like to throw in: Within reason. Don't use Shintoism as an excuse to bungee jump without a cord attached to you or something).

Japan is close-minded about many, many things. They will, for instance, happily tolerate foreign tourists, but things can get hairy if you plan on living here. Just take a look at some of the sensational news out there to get some sort of idea of how they treat women who want to have children and still work in this country.

However, religion is what I think about when I think of Japan's open-mindedness. While I've had friends in America get into fights over their brand of Christianity being better than the other's, in Japan, no one seems to think their religion (let alone their brand of a particular religion) is better than someone else's. They don't care, because they think it's all the same, which is to say, sacred.

The priestesses

The Shinto Wedding
 We got to the shrine grounds by 8:30 a.m. and were ushered down into the basement of one of the buildings there. It looked like a hotel small conference room that smelled like an old trailer.

The bride and groom came into the room and sat at the head of the room at this little banquet table facing us, the bride in a white kimono with the hood on while the groom was in the traditional kimono for men.

Their mothers were in kimono while their fathers were in full tuxedos. Everyone else was in a suit and tie or a dress.

Relatives sat in the middle of the room while us friends and non-relatives sat in the periphery.

A man from the shrine who came in wearing a suit and tie proceeded to explain what was about to happen. He told us that when someone said, "Onaori kudasai," it meant to stop bowing your heads. No one seemed to have heard that expression before.

The man walked everyone through the ceremony using a well-practiced speech, talking almost a little too fast at times as he breezed through what the two priestesses would be doing and how the bride and groom were to present a part of a tree to the gods of the shrine. The groom, clearly nervous, fumbled it a few times and ended up looking at how his future wife smoothly moved her hands to point the end of the branch in the right direction.

After about ten minutes of this, I began to wonder if the ceremony was going to take place in this conference room that smelled like an old trailer. However, the man wrapped up his speech and said we'd be going back upstairs in just a few minutes and that this was the time to take photos (though we would be allowed to take photos in the shrine, too).

My husband went over to the groom, his friend, and asked if they'd gone through what would happen at the ceremony beforehand.

"No," said the groom, clearly flustered, "that was the first time I've heard what's going to happen."

"Wow, you're definitely going to mess this up," my husband said, being a good friend.

In contrast to the disheveled, too-nervous-to-smile-for-photos groom, the bride was radiant in her calm. She was like a rock in the rapids the groom was steadily creating.

We were all ushered upstairs into the main area of the shrine, and I was truly, deeply moved to see we would not have to sit on the floor. All these years in Japan has yet to teach me how to kneel on a tatami mat for hours on end, nor has it helped my back when there's nothing to lean against. There were little fold out chairs with no back to them, like you'd use for camping.

About a minute after we were all settled into our chairs, someone from the shrine started banging against a taikou drum. The main priest of the shrine rang the bells of the shrine to wake the gods up so they'd listen to him, and then he started saying things I couldn't understand in a sing-song voice. (Neither my husband nor his friends could apparently figure out what the guy was saying either.) At one point I could make out the names of the bride and groom, along with their dates of birth.

We were told to bow our heads at random times, and all of us suffered when we were told to bow our heads...and bow them...and keep them bowed...and just a little more...and ok maybe now it was ok to raise your head again. Your neck muscles get a sudden workout.

At one point the bride and groom got up, drank sake, and went up into the main area of the shrine. They presented their branches of a tree (at least, that's what I think they were) to the gods, and then the groom read aloud their names and the date, proclaiming that they are now married.

The priestesses really grabbed my attention throughout the entire ceremony. They never once smiled, nor showed any hint they were even human. I began to question their humanity even more when they began moving in perfect unison...all the time. At one point they went up a few steps into the main part of the shrine (where the gods dwell) and did a ritual dance in such unison that pop stars the world over would wilt with jealousy if they ever saw it. It was just not normal.

Most eye-catching, for me at least, was when they poured sake into these little plates for everyone to drink. Two little tables had been set up in front of the lines of relatives lining either side of the bride and groom (who were in the center) with the little plates on them. These priestesses started in the center of the room in pouring the sake, and they tilted the little pots containing the sake in unison. They would tilt it once, twice, three times and then would take a single step away from the center of the room to pour sake into the next plate. It was mesmerizing to watch.

I asked anyone who would listen to me why Shinto weddings always involve drinking sake, and no one had an answer. The man at the beginning of all of this had mentioned something briefly about a play on words (the word for avoiding someone or something in Japanese is "sakeru" and he said drinking sake prevents you from avoiding because you're drinking away that avoidance tendency) but I don't know if that's true.

Throughout the entire ceremony, I felt lost. The beginning felt like wading into a pool, and toward the end of the ceremony I felt like I was in this turbulent sea of culture I couldn't begin to navigate. This was all way beyond what I could comprehend of Japanese culture. It was so ancient and so far removed from what I normally see in everyday life here that I was kind of dizzy from it all. My small comfort was in hearing my husband and all of his friends wholeheartedly agreeing that they also had no idea what was going on.

And during all of this, from the priest waking the gods to the groom announcing their marriage to the priestesses pouring sake in better unison than robots could achieve, behind me I could hear the familiar sound of people outside throwing coins into a box set outside the shrine followed by two loud, resounding claps. To me, it kind of felt like having a wedding in a church with a small, separate service going on in the back. Interesting.

Tips for theme parks 2

Flight of the Hippogriff at USJ's Harry Potter World

With school starting up and work kicking into high gear, now is actually the perfect time to go visit a theme park. You'll get your full money's worth thanks to the non-existent lines.

While my friends and I managed to miss the obon holiday period in Japan, we were still met with a wall of people at Harry Potter World in Osaka. I think it doesn't help that it was just opened in July.

Below is an overview of what you can do at Harry Potter World and my review of each option.

Hogwarts Castle

We lined up here first, and it wasn't until we were well and good in line that we thought to stop and ask a staff member how long the wait was. There hadn't been a sign out front telling you that. The staff person said it was 250 minutes.

My friend did the math quickly in her head before shouting, "It's four hours??"

Thankfully there were four of us, and while I don't recommend this just because it is a huge pain getting in and out of line, two of us stayed in line while two of us were able to get away and walk around the park. As there are no bathrooms available while you wait the four hours, staff people working the lines seemed accustomed to people ducking in and out of the line for bathroom breaks.

Tips: It was also ridiculously hot. There is no real shelter (except a green house...which was hot, too) so come extra prepared for this one. Bring a sun umbrella. Even if you've never used one before, never thought one would ever come in handy in your entire life, if you are going to Harry Potter World and it is slightly hot outside, now would be the time to go buy your first sun, folding umbrella. Bring spray to cool your skin and clothing down. Bring water. Bring snacks. Above all, bring something to keep you occupied for at least four hours. There is only so long you can talk to the people you're with.

Luckily for us, the wait turned out to be closer to two and a half hours than four. You're expected to shove all of your belongings into a locker, so try not to bring a massive bag.

You hang like you're on a ski lift on this ride, so try not to wear flip flops (you shouldn't be wearing flip flops to a theme park anyway, unless you don't care about your legs and feet).

Review: I have to admit that I am terrified of big, nasty creatures suddenly appearing right in front of you. This ride starts off with you following Harry on his broom as Hagrid asks if anyone's seen his dragon. Lucky you, you get to find that massive dragon, and this ride brilliantly mixes screen work with animatronic work. Suddenly there is this massive dragon breathing fire at you. Aaand...I shut my eyes. I know, it's pathetic. Everyone in my group enjoyed berating me over that one. Why wait two and a half hours to not even see the ride? But there you go.I would open my eyes a little tiny bit to see where we were on the ride, and I saw dementors on the screen so I shut my eyes, then you're in this creepy forest, and again I shut my eyes.

Overview: The people in my group said this ride was actually worth waiting in that long line for. They said it was way better than they had anticipated, and it comes highly recommended. I would suggest that if you (or someone you're with) are squeamish about nasty things suddenly coming within inches of your face, then just skip the ride.

Ollivanders

The wait for this ride was at least an hour, but after Hogwarts, that didn't seem so bad anymore. You go into this tiny room piled high with wands, and this foreigner actor really puts on a nice little show. He will usually pick a kid out of your group and have them try out a wand. There are nice special effects, the actor is actually really good (despite having to serve as his own interpreter in English and Japanese), and then you're shuffled into the wand shop. 

Tips: If you have a little one and you don't want to shell out 3,500 yen for a wand, skip this thing altogether. Tell them it's closed or something. Because the kid who's chosen will try out several wands before the actor dusts off one particular wand box, and as soon as that kid holds that wand, music plays, a spotlight turns on, and it's magic. And then a staff member takes that wand and guides you over to the cash register, where you'll be asked to pay for it. 

Review: I'd say if you only had to wait five minutes (and your kid already has a wand or seriously doesn't want one, or you're all adults), it's worth seeing this short little skit just for the acting. If it's over five minutes, though, just skip the "ride" altogether and go next door to the wand shop to check it out. 

Review of the store: My friend came up with the suggestion that you could go to a computer terminal, take a personality quiz, and then have your wand chosen for you. Unfortunately, that's not how it pans out. It's just a shop loaded with stuff rather haphazardly with display cases along the wall telling you what each wand means. There's no mention of the wand's core - just the wood the wand is made out of (and the wands are actually plastic). If it's not crowded then go ahead and peruse the store, but if it's wall-to-wall, then don't bother unless you're burning to own a wand.

Flight of the Hippogriff

If you're wondering where Hagrid's hut is, and you want to see Syrius' bike, then you'll want to at least line up for this ride. This line was also really long, and as it was raining on and off all day, the ride shut down a few times while we waited. 

Tips: Again, time to whip out that sun umbrella because there is no shade while in line. You're also against what I imagine is trying to be the Forbidden Forest, so expect bugs every now and then, too, if you're at the park during a warmer season. 

Review: This is a good roller coaster for people who feel they can slightly handle roller coasters. Those who are huge fans of roller coasters (like me, for example) will find themselves disappointed and bored by the experience. It's worth riding if the wait is 20 minutes or less if you're a slight roller coaster fan. It's worth waiting five minutes if you're a bigger fan. 

The Three Broomsticks

The wait for this was, you guessed it, long. This is where it's helpful to have snacks in hand so you don't have to rely on restaurants for your food. It's good to go for the experience, though. 

Tips: Go when it's not normally time for lunch or dinner. As you're walking between shops and whatnot, keep your eye on the line in front of here and prepare to pounce if it's a short enough wait. If you don't feel like doing this, then go when you're not hungry, because by the time you get through the line, you'll be hungry again. 

Review: My friends and I all got something different. It's stereotypical British food with Cornish pasties, Shepherd's pie, and then food like corn on the cob and pork ribs. There's a kiddie menu that didn't look too bad. Be prepared to shell out 2,000 yen per meal. Don't bother with the Cornish pasties unless you're not really hungry because there were only three given to me, and all were bite-size, even by Japanese serving size standards. It's worth eating here just to see the interior, though.

Butterbeer and Pumpkin Juice

Review: Butterbeer tastes like a rich cream soda, and it was amazing. I was a fan of the Pumpkin Juice, too (it tasted like melted pumpkin pie to me), but my Japanese friends said it tasted like tonkatsu sauce or some sort of meat sauce, and they could only stomach a few mouthfuls of it. 

The Shops

You'd be pleasantly surprised to learn that there were even long waits just to get into any of the shops to buy stuff. 

Tips: Try to figure out beforehand what kind of stuff you want to buy, because if you see lines outside the shops, then just assume you won't have time to meander through the store and peruse everything. Not without being shoved around a lot, though. 

Review: I'm sure the shops would be better if I'd gone on a day that wasn't wall-to-wall people. Everything is, surprise surprise, overpriced. Just prepare for that. I wouldn't recommend any shop over any of the others, though I was a fan of Honeydukes just because they had American candy in these glass jars that I didn't know existed in Japan (of course, THAT candy wasn't on sale...). 

Tips for theme parks 1

Hogsmeade at Harry Potter World

Having just experienced Harry Potter World at Universal Studios Japan (USJ) on Sunday, I thought I'd share a few things I learned that can help you better enjoy going there, if you ever want to. This post will be split in two.

First, some general tips for going to a theme park.

Go in the fall or spring
This applies to most theme parks just about anywhere in the world. Go to a theme park like Disneyland when kids are stuck at school and adults are stuck at work (that means not going on a national holiday either). If you can pull this off, you will be rewarded with shorter lines, discounts and weather you can handle.

Bring food
If the parks allow. Most theme park food is absolutely awful in terms of nutrition, and while I know you're on vacation and you deserve the junk food, you need food that will help you walk around the park, too. If you're on a budget, bringing food also helps in that department. To save the most money, either make and bring your own food or buy stuff at your nearest supermarket rather than a convenience store.

Bring a water bottle (or two)
Most theme parks will have drinking fountains where you can restock on water, that most precious of drinks. Bringing your own water bottles and filling up on water most of the day will also help you regain a pulse after you see how much drinks are going for inside the park.

Wear comfortable, walking shoes
Many people do not seem to realize just how much walking and standing is involved when going to a theme park. If you're keen on seeing and doing everything, then just expect to walk or stand for over eight hours. Wear serious shoes.

Prepare for weather
For rain: If the weather forecast calls for a 20 percent chance of rain or more, bring an umbrella or poncho with you just in case.
Spring: Bring a jacket, dress in layers.
Summer: If you can't avoid going during this season, then prepare for being overheated and surrounded by thousands of people feeling the same way. Bring extra sunscreen and ways to cool off. Most 100 yen stores sell portable fans around summertime. Unless you feel like getting an arm workout moving a fan or the brochure to the theme park all day long, a portable electric fan is heaven. Stock it with good batteries, and you're good to go. Also bring plenty of water with you and a sun umbrella (there is sometimes no shade while waiting in lines)
Fall: Bring a jacket for the evening and sunscreen.
Winter: Dress like you would before going to a football game outdoors. Just because you're moving around doesn't mean you won't freeze. Dress in layers since I'm sure most indoor areas of the theme park will have the heat cranked up. Bring kairo with you for every part of your body. Bring thermoses of hot drinks. 

Prepare for lines
I don't understand people who seem genuinely shocked to see the wait times for places. This is a theme park, people. You will wait in a line unless you decided to go on a weekday during the off season and the weather is terrible out. Just accept it as part of the theme park experience, and prepare accordingly. Bring a light book to read, bring a video game console, bring some magazines. Treat waiting in line like you're in the back seat of a car about to go on a road trip. This is especially paramount if you're bringing little kids with you, because there is hardly anything to hold their interest while waiting.

Prepare for a dead cell phone
Bring a portable charger. Bring two if you only have your cell phone to keep you entertained while you wait in line.

Fireflies in Tokyo

One of many reasons why I can enjoy the turning of the seasons is thanks to a magazine called Pia. Every season they create a guidebook to the Kanto area regarding events, activities, food and everything else you can do during that particular season.

I love to buy this magazine, circle the events I want to go and then slot a day out for it on the calendar ahead of time.

The Summer Pia edition features all the fireworks festivals and summery activities available, but one that particularly caught my eye was the promise of being able to see fireflies in the greater Tokyo area.

For me, summer just isn't summer without fireflies, and most of the Kanto area is woefully low on them.

The fireflies could be found at Hotel Chinzanso on what turned out to be the outskirts of Tokyo, housed in a massive park the hotel has.

Apart from the bad point that the hotel was far, far away from any train station, it was an absolutely amazing PR event. Anyone could enter the park; you didn't have to be a guest at the hotel. Entrance into the park was free, and after you had your fill of seeing fireflies, the hotel offered a free shuttle service to Ikebukuro Station.

The park, for what it's worth, is absolutely glorious. There's a nice river running through what is actually more of a valley than a park. You descend into it, the soft lights of the hotel and some black lighting (fireflies shy away from anything else) guiding you on the steps down toward the river. It seems like a really nice place to get lost in for a while.

When we went there, the place was packed with people, all who were saying, "Do you see them? I don't see them. Where are they?" to one another in fierce whispers.

The park had put a few of them in a glass enclosure behind the waterfall, which could be accessed by this little tunnel, but apart from that, there seemed to be none. Maybe we were too early, I wondered.

Upon deeper exploration into the park, I realized it was incredibly easy to spot the few fireflies meandering around the river the same way it's easy to spot a celebrity in a crowd who didn't wear a good enough disguise. Someone would shout "Firefly!" and everyone would run to wherever that person was pointing, and then others would join in with, "Yes, it's over there! Look!" all of them pointing.

One firefly seemed to give fan service by lazily floating around the heads of observers, prompting everyone to ooh and ahh as they extended their hands upward, hoping the firefly might land on them. It finally landed on one woman, and she was instantly surrounded by people, all who wanted more of a close-up look at a firefly.


I grew up in a small town, where every summer I would go out into a backyard overwhelmed by fireflies and see how many of them I could catch. For me, fireflies were as commonplace as pigeons are in the city.

Yet there I stood, watching people go crazy over just seeing a handful of fireflies.

All of that meant that fireflies are now so rare here that no one was experiencing what I had taken for granted as a kid.

Watching the fuss people made over the little insects, I couldn't help but feel sad.