Dinner

I just came home from a farewell dinner with Professor Yutaka Katayama, the professor who is responsible for bringing us here to Japan. The dinner was heartwarming, not just because it was a farewell dinner - and everything seems to be rosier and more sentimental when you have to say goodbye to someone, but also because it was really touching to hear a foreigner talk about the Philippines with such knowledge, and love for the Philippines as he does.

When he interviewed me for the scholarship, he asked where National Power Corporation was and I said it is in Quezon City. He pursued and asked "Where is it in Quezon City? Saan siya?" I was taken aback because, okay, he can speak Tagalog. And later when we were talking about lawmaking in the Philippines, he explained how he was involved in the enactment of the Clean Air Act, and he explained what provisions should have been included but were discarded in the Bicameral Conference Committee Meetings. And I thought, okay so I cannot BS this guy. He seems to know more than I do about Philippine policy.

But I eventually got the scholarship, and later we got the last subject he was teaching in Kobe University - Local Development. We have Japanese, Italian and Indonesian classmates but he would talk about the Philippines most of the time. He even tells us inside stories - do you know that the owner of this grocery chain is a smuggler and that his girlfriend works in the office of that official? He talks about things like that, which are not common knowledge to most Filipinos. He could not have gotten that from reading the news, but from being friends with so many Filipinos in the academe, in government, in the media.

Earlier, he was talking about the 1986 EDSA Revolution and how this event has been very significant in his life that he uses 1986 in all his email addresses. Anyway, he was a visiting professor at the Political Science Department of the University of the Philippines at that time. During the Snap Elections, he monitored the elections from a polling precint in Barangay Guadalupe Nuevo in Makati City. He was expecting something big to happen but from nine in the morning until half an hour before the end of the voting time, nothing much happened. And then in the last hour, goons with high-powered guns trooped to the precint and seized all the voting paraphernalia. He started taking pictures of what was happening. A goon who saw what he was doing aimed to hit him with a rifle but he said, "No, no, I'm friends with Barangay Captain Villanueva", who he said was the head of Barangay Nagkaisahan at that time, and won the Silver Medal in Boxing in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 1964." The goon spared him, and he escaped.

He went on to say that days prior to the EDSA Revolution, an official from the Japanese Embassy called him and said that some things are happening. He followed the news closely, as he listened to Radio Veritas. He learned that some people are going to EDSA so he went too. He was really moved by what he saw, and he took lots of pictures. When Marcos fleed from Malacanang, Katayama sensei was in Camp Crame and he witnessed the euphoria of some of the members of the PC.

He asked us about our plans after graduating from Kobe University. When he was about to leave, we gave him a pen and a planner and he was a bit teary-eyed. It is too bad that he is retiring by the end of the month to transfer to another university in Kyoto. He said that he is tasked in that university to create a department for international studies. I feel very honored to have met him.###

So school has officially started

a month ago.

One subject, which requires us to read two whole books at a time, will end in two weeks. I have another class which is conducted only twice a month. I will have an extensive class in February which will last for only a week. Studying here is relatively easier than studying in UP. For instance, we don't need to look for the readings in the library, we just show up in class and the professor will hand out the readings for the next meeting. We don't have to spend for photocopying. I remember breaking the bank when I was in law school as you have to buy books and photocopy tons and tons of cases. We have a card that allows us to print and photocopy up to 3000 pages. Very convenient.

I just wish we don't have to write a thesis though, hahaha. Constant source of stress!

P.S. Stress-induced pimples are back huhuhu.

Life in suspended animation

When we arrived in Japan, we stayed for a few days in Shin-Osaka Washington Hotel with the other JDS scholars from different countries. I'm not exactly Ms. Congeniality so I didn't make any new friends at once, except for this Bangladeshi guy I almost had an altercation with. By the second week, some of the fellows started moving out of the hotel to proceed to the respective cities of their universities. On September 12, we moved straight to our new apartment in Kobe.

We were told that most of the apartments in Japan are totally empty when one moves in. As I wasn't "inheriting" a bed from our senior fellows, I had to buy my own. For the first few nights I had to sleep on the floor with only a comforter for cushion.

I initially wanted to buy a real bed with a real mattress but then again we'd have to dispose them when we leave in two years. And the disposal might turn out to be more expensive than the bed, so after a few days of indecision, I settled for this one.

The room does not have a closet so that's another problem. Fortunately, one of the senior fellows gave his closet to me (ok he made me pay for it).

I think I'm ready to start my life here. :)

P.S. Living here is like taking a break from my real life. I'm beginning to understand why some people choose to stay here.

I don't get it. How do Japanese women manage to stay slim despite the endless array of sweets and cakes and breads and chocolates and other tasty treats available to them? I have been here for only two weeks and I can't fit in my pants anymore. I am on a two-year food trip. Has it been a week already when I decided to explore Shin-Osaka Station? There is a gourmet street within the station complex. I looked around for the cheapest noodle house as I was craving noodles. I got in one and ordered something that looked familiar based on the picture - beef noodles with dark sauce which I was guessing to be soy sauce or the like. It turned out to be curry udon. I didn't think I'd be able to finish the whole thing but I did. I surprise myself sometimes.

Oh I'll get fat here.###

Shinsaibashi-Suji

The thing with starting a new life in a new city is that it requires you to buy loads of stuff like beds and doormats and toiletries basket and the like -- a perfect excuse, really, to go out and shop.

It was a clear day, and the hotel we were staying in was two minutes away from Shin-Osaka station.

So today I took the subway to Shinsaibashi, said to be Osaka's best known shopping district. And when I came out of the station, Louis Vuitton and Fendi were the first ones to greet me. But I skipped their invite and headed straight to Shinsaibashi-Suji, a long covered street that features well-known brands alongside quaint shops selling shoes or clothes or trinkets or antique Japanese books. Will I ever be able to read Murakami in Japanese? I wonder.

So okay, the shopping street I went to doesn't exactly sell the things I need to buy, but I was happy nonetheless. There were rows and rows of shops. I loved the Kitkat store in particular. I love being pleasantly lost in places I have never been to.

Japan, Japan

In the past, I wanted to go and live in Japan for a while. I used to look at friends' pictures of booze fests and late night train rides and photowalks and drinks and barbecues in the park, of flowers blossoming in spring and leaves turning rust in autumn. I wanted a taste of that. For a while, I have forgotten that I wanted that because I started wanting different things. I got tired of going to school, and I wanted a life with no stress, no readings, no papers, no exams. I was just happy living a very carefree life.

In October, I saw a poster in the office announcing that JICA is looking for scholars to send to Japan for two years. I submitted an application and a year later, I am here in Japan.

Yesterday, we signed a two-year lease contract for a small place we will be staying in for the next two years. I am looking at the layout of the room and imagining how I can make the place "mine". We walked to a shop here in Osaka selling home items. It feels like 2008, when I started living in Kalayaan. I had to buy a bed and a closet and a full-length mirror then. I would have have to buy those things again.

I am not feeling very touristy yet. I haven't visited must-see places in Osaka, figuring that I would have two years to do all of that. Or not. I want to get settled first. A sidenote: an officemate who was a recipient of the same scholarship as mine said that everything will happen so fast that when it is time to go home, it would feel like everything went by without you noticing. Oh, but I want to notice. I want to go out and feel that the morning air is getting a little bit chilly. And that they've stocked green tea kit kat on the convenience store shelves. And that they always serve tea in restaurants instead of water, and that I can drink water from the tap. The other day I looked out the window and there was humongous rainbow outside.

I want to follow my nose on where I want to eat, or else, just follow my wallet because I have to remind myself that I have to stick to budget. I want to go out now, there is a small ramen place just outside the hotel which serves very delicious and very cheap noodles.

Oh and I would try to take more pictures. :)###

UP Food Trip

In the interest of eating, and katakawan, and wanting to spend some bogchi time with my good friends Anie and Jeremy, we trooped to beloved UP for another food trip. And because the great Jeremy Bourdain already reviewed the places we visited, I'll just post pics. Kagutom!