Genki Japanese vs. Minna no Nihongo

More ancient half-written posts unearthed from my previous trip

As I've made the switch from Minna no Nihongo to Genki Japanese at GenkiJACS, I'm in a position to somewhat compare the two, at least from a student's perspective.

Tokyo: Leaving town

For my last day in Tokyo, my rough outline is: a local exhibition on writing systems; the National Diet; and possibly the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Timing doesn't quite work out. Packing and checking the room takes longer than expected. I'd been planning to head over to the museum for opening around 10am, but it's about 10.30 when I arrive after struggling to find somewhere to dump my luggage in the station. Thank goodness Japan has coin lockers, is all I can say. Not nearly enough, mind!

Ancient Orient Museum

Having (with considerable difficulty!) found this place already, I make my way through the mall, into the secret passages and arrive at the museum.

Tokyo: City View and Mori Art

And so, on a gloomy afternoon, I finally headed for the Roppongi Hills complex and tower.

Warning: if you don't like spiders, you might want to Page Down a couple of times...

There's a circle of businesses, shops and things around the tower itself, and I found it relatively confusing to work out how on earth I was supposed to actually get into the place. I walked most of the way around before I found an acceptable entrance. On the plus side, there were some reasonably pleasant flowerbeds.

Tokyo: Parking, fine

For my third day in Tokyo, and my final full day, I planned a slightly more tranquil day. The plan was roughly as follows:

• Shinjuku Gyoen (and, by extension, a bit of Shinjuku)
• Meiji Jingu
• Shibuya
• Mori Art Museum and Roppingi Hills

As usual, things didn't quite go as planned, but that's the advantage of built-in leeway.

You can approximately follow the day's route here. Bear in mind though that because Street View is designed for cars (sigh), the combination of overlapping flyovers, subways (in the British, "road underneath the road" sense) and pedestrianised areas makes it difficult. Inexplicably, you can independently use Street View to wander around Shinjuku Gyoen, but you can't actually incorporate those footpaths into a map like this. Also, the section from Shinanomachi to Roppongi was actually done by underground, not on foot...

Tokyo: a very long walk

For my first full day in Tokyo, I decided on a walk. My take on Tokyo is that (at least when travelling alone) the main thing to see is, well, Tokyo. So my plan for today is to walk through the Yanaka/Nippori district, which is supposed to be very traditional, then down through Ueno Park to the National Museum of Nature and Science.

Strictly speaking this is not a particularly long walk, but given it's sightseeing, I expect it to feel five times longer due to museum legs.

I took the train to Nippori station, then wandered around ineffectually until I stumbled across Yanaka. The surrounding area just looks like any other set of streets, so it's not especially easy to find.

Tokyo: the National Museum of Science-mumblemumble

The Museum of Science and Nature

The big event of my trip today was 国立科学博物館, the National Museum of Science and Nature. Or the National Science Museum, as it appears to be literally named. I like natural history, a lot, and also science, so the opportunity to do those things in Japanese was obviously tempting.

Here it is called the National Museum of Nature and Science. But who am I to quibble at a little inconsistency?

There is a big statue of a whale outside the museum. I honestly couldn't decide whether I thought this was a valiant attempt to alter public perception of whales and inspire the desire for conservation, or a hypocritical celebration of endangered creatures which the government persists in killing under a blatantly false pretence of scientific research when Japanese people rarely touch the stuff, or a purely random event. On the whole I'm inclined to think the museum is probably pro-whale.

Whalefie! I have developed a tragic fondness for ironic selfies, especially where a silly name can be coined.

Moderately interesting building; I found the proportions of the blocks, and the accidental colour contrasts with the green bronze, quite pleasing.

Just to warn you in advance, this post is mostly going to be pictures of cool things and not much musing. If you unaccountably come here looking for stuff I wrote, you'll probably be disappointed.

Inside the museum

Before I got into the museum proper, I found an exhibition of futuristic art by local schoolchildren. Some fun ideas here.

Weather control antigrav vehicle doing something to a stork I think?

The entrance to the 360-degree cinema. No photos allowed inside! I watched a film on the evolution of humans. It was kind of cool but also weird.

This display is discussing the Japanese Deer Dance, which I'd never heard of but would now like to see. You can find some cool photos at Shishiodori.com and

I found a video. Watch it in high definition, it's much nicer.

This is a model of an early hut. Very similar to ones I've seen in old Celtic sites - probably not suprising, there's a limited set of good ways to solve the same survival problems.

This cabinet contained a selection of skulls dated to different periods of human development, and reconstructions of possible faces. Here we have a Yayoi People skull, dated around 300BC-300AD, the Iron Age in Japan.

I didn't catch the names of these skulls in my photo; they were later examples, though.

The staircase is quite fine.

The windows of the staircase are very nice. Relatively simple, but stylish. I couldn't capture the look of the light through them, though.

A bat! Noble creature.

A classic, depressingly common tale of poor ecology. The residents of Oshojima were fed up of the danger of poisonous snakes - which, let's be clear, had as much right as the people to live there - and decided to introduce the Indian mongoose to wipe them out. Good job, guys! The mongoose proceeded to turn its nose up at the prospect of a snake diet, instead plumping for the delicious endemic Amami rabbit and other rare rodents. Due to the extensive spread of the mongoose, these species are now in serious danger of extinction.

Various skeletons, particularly a whale (I don't remember what kind).

A vulture replica.

This is a model of the entire digestive apparatus of a cow.

Cow digestion illustrated.

Boars and skulls

Yay, pigs. I have always liked pigs.

A skeleton of Paleoparadoxia tabatai

which looks really cute and I want one as a pet.

See? Isn't it adorable?

A model of a fungal colony, with the visible mushrooms above and a complex web of hyphae below. I think. I don't have the description to hand.

A giant salamander - well, a model of one.

This is not, as I thought, a vampire squid, but a flapjack squid. This species is sufficiently obscure that Wikipedia doesn't even have an entry for the species, which is only found near Japan.

An array of exciting sealife

A cheerful, welcoming crocodile (you can tell because there's a notch in the upper jaw where the fourth lower tooth will stick up).

Elephant. They look so odd without basically all of their distinctive features (except being big, of course).

A giraffe skeleton

This array of ungulates is mildly intimidating, to be honest.

See what I mean? This buffalo is well up in your face.

This antelope knows your dark secret, and regards you with weary but silent scorn.

Escape Pod

There were still several floors of the museum left, but by this point I was pretty worn out. I feel like, especially after a morning of walking around, doing a whole museum in a day is usually neither a good idea nor very practical. Instead I headed off to get something to eat.

I normally aim to have something vaguely interesting or insightful to say, but I... don't, really. It's a museum, not greatly different (in the sections I saw) from what you might find in another city in another country. There were no striking cultural aspects I noticed to comment on, and nothing entertaining happened to me. And quite honestly, I'm pretty tired right now so not in a state to really work at coming up with something. So... this is all you're getting. Sorry.

Afterthoughts

If you like this sort of thing, the Museum is definitely worth a visit. You will need a reasonable level of Japanese to appreciate a large proportion of the exhibits, though in fairness models and skeletons of cool animals are a universal language. There are audio guides available, which I didn't bother with, partly out of laziness and partly because I felt it wasn't necessary for what I'd be looking at. It also has a cafe, which I didn't feel like visiting at the time; like most museum cafes it looked a bit fancy and a bit pricey, but otherwise good.

Tokyo: arrivals and decisions

Due to the shinkansen timings, I arrive rather early in Tokyo. Basically I had to check out of the hotel by 10am, and I'd already exhausted the very limited nearby delights of Hamamatsu, so there wasn't much reason to hang around for long. It looked like waiting for the 11am shinkansen would get me there at late lunchtime, which sounded like I could easily end up very hungry. There's typically a certain amount of faff before you can really set about finding a meal; I wouldn't want to do it with all my luggage (especially given how cramped restaurants tend to be in big cities, and Japan in particular), and I wasn't sure there'd be much near my hotel.

So I decide to rock up before 10am and get the first train possible. In fact, this turns out to be an extra-express train with only a handful of stops, so I'm in Tokyo by 11.40 and a bit stuck. Previous hotels have let me check in early, but I suspect this one (which seems more modest) probably won't. On the other hand, I can't see anywhere tempting to eat in the station, and I don't want to leave because I'll lose the ability to use my shinkansen ticket to reach the hotel if I exit the barriers. Plus, I'd have to pay to store my luggage, if I could even find an empty coin locker, which seems frankly unlikely.

I'm staying in the Grand House Chang Tee Hotel, which at least sounds impressive, even though it's a modest building on a narrow side street in a suburb (Ikebukuro).

Hamamatsu: everything there is to do in Hamamatsu

And so, having determined to make the most of my brief stay in Hamamatsu, I proceeded to boldly do, if not everything, at least a significant proportion of the things you can do in Hamamatsu proper when your Japanese is only tolerable.

Quite a large proportion of these, it turns out, are going to Hamamatsu Castle.

Meanderings

It was a pleasantly cool morning, though it would get hotter, and the sky was a gorgeous blue. I decided to begin by wandering gently towards the castle, but having no particular rush to get there, I looked around and tried to soak in the city a bit.

Now I must confess that, in general, I'm well past the stage of finding Japanese cities generically interesting. They're not novel to me any more - at least, I've got used to both the generic suburbs and the generic city centres, as well as common types of building. The excitement of seeing them that existed when I first arrived has long worn off.

On the other hand, I don't have the same interest in them as I might in a British city. Ironically I think there's an uncanny valley here. When a city is new and foreign and fresh, it's interesting because of its novelty - all the things you aren't familiar with. At the other extreme, when you've lived amongst a particular style of building for decades, you've so much experience of so many thousands of exemplars (whether that's individual buildings, street layouts, city organisations etc.) that you can draw comparisons, spot local variation, and generally evaluate as part of a rich context you've built up. You also build up knowlege of how those things relate to history and technological development, social factors, and other interesting points to consider.

When you've spent a mere few months in small parts of a small number of cities, the gloss of novelty is gone, but you haven't yet built up the context that makes differences meaningful. Now the tall tiled apartment block just looks like a manshon and they all look pretty much the same, don't they? Oh look, there's some sort of traditionalish restaurant with wooden facing. Hey, a temple.

Which is to say that I think Hamamatsu probably has a slightly unfair deal here. However, I did stop to appreciate some specific buildings and views that I'd like to share with you. Just things that tickled my personal fancy.

If you want to play along at home, here's my route for the day!

Hamamatsu: the arrival

We hear First Nation commanded to beat the rug - not definitely

Enthusiastic thespian Roman is enjoying endless legal action

I feel like I should feel guilty that the first thing this city brings to mind is terrible cryptic crossword clues, but I don't. I feel vaguely guilty for that, if it's any help.

Osaka: desultory wanderings

Long time, no blog! This post will go up in the past, as though I hadn't failed to write anything for two months. Sorry, I've been busy with, you know, life stuff.

So on arriving in Osaka, and between checking out of my hotel and getting the train on Sunday, I kind of wandered around in that area not doing much. You know those awkward blocks of time - not really enough to go anywhere else and do things, yet too long to do nothing?

So here for your delectation are just some generic photos of Osaka. Luckily, the area I was in is a relatively interesting one where lots of tourists like to go - largely because it's full of shops.

By popular request, here is the map and here is the Google Drive!

Osaka: Castles

After our owly adventure, M-san sadly had to leave me and fly back to her home planet native country.

At her recommendation, I wandered over to look at Osaka Castle. It was a surprisingly long way compared to how it seemed on the map, so I did start wondering if I'd just completely missed it. Thank goodness for mapping apps (props to Laura for pointing me at Maps.Me, since Google Maps refused to let me download any Japan maps for offline use).

This is just some kind of bar, but I liked the aesthetic.

I took a couple of panoramic shots from atop this walkway. I think they're pretty cool. Click on them to get a better idea.

This photo makes everything look quite grey, but it didn't feel it at the time. This is crossing the river towards the castle.

This stone is called Higaishi and is apparently the second largest used in the castle. It's pretty massive.

First glimpse of the castle from afar! At this distance you can't see all the tourists...

Ah, there they are.

This is actually a panoramic shot designed to show off the curvature of the walls.

About this time in my holiday I was getting overexcited by the panoramic function, as you can see. In fairness, this really is the only way to capture some of the feeling of looking around these places.

View from inside the walls.

Two views of the castle walls from the grounds.

There's a nice peaceful garden of... some kind of trees... which I spent a little time wandering through. They had gold labels that glinted in the sun. I believe they're Japanese apricot, Prunus mume.

You know I like my close-ups of nature.

A cat lurks amidst the bushes.

There's a temple near the castle, and a couple were getting married in one part of it (not shown) although at the time I think it was still early stages.

Side temple.

A nice flower.

The biggest building in the castle; it's the Osaka City Museum now, although I don't know what it originally was.

Castle restoration

The castle was badly damaged in 1868 during the Meiji Restoration, and partly repaired in the late 1920s, before being badly damaged again in WW2 when it was targeted for its use as an armoury. The restoration was completed in 1997 and is largely concrete - not very authentic, but apparently acceptable. The following maps display some of the archaeological work and restoration.

More castle

Back of the museum. I quite liked it for some reason.

The museum looked pretty striking, and much older, as the sun faded behind it.

It was quite hard to photograph the castle courtyard because of all the crowds. I think this gives a reasonable impression, though.

In the end, I decided against going inside. I'd been inside castles before, and I was a bit footsore after a complete circuit of the grounds and walking quite a lot around Osaka as well. So I just headed back to the hotel and started thinking about food.

This area on the way back from the castle was the largest single expanse of grass I have seen in Japan. I was compelled to walk on it as far as possible, enjoying the faint springiness of the grass under my feet. Since I now live in a city even at home, with very few opportunities to walk on grass, this sort of thing is precious.

I actually ended up buying some healthy ingredients from a shop on the way home, and assembling a loose picnicy sort of meal to eat rather than dining out. It was a nice change, to be honest.

Overview

It's worth pointing out that getting to Osaka Castle from central Osaka is a reasonable but lengthy walk. Osaka Castle itself is also large and walking around the walls, while pleasant, takes a long time and is relatively tiring. Combining the two, as I did, is probably suboptimal, and I'd recommend looking for a public transport option to get to the Castle.

I also regretted not having brought a meal with me, as it would have been a nice location to sit down for lunch. It'd also be a good opportunity to take a break and so enjoy the walking around more. I'd recommend doing that, and giving yourself longer than I did.

I do find it striking how different the castle grounds are in Japan compared to anywhere in the UK. I'm used to castles and country houses alike being surrounded by lush fields or rolling lawns, but in Japan, as the courtyard photo shows pretty well, it's mostly a case of bare earth with patches of grass here and there. I suppose it's just the climate. And of course, a lot of them are in city centres or thereabouts, so it turns into city quite quickly.