Brilliant!

Training is almost over, and I'll be heading off into the mountains very soon. As I've caroused my way across Okayama, I occasionally stumble across things that make me exclaim, "BRILLIANT!"; concepts or items that truly need to be imported back to the U.S. Here's a short list:

-No sales tax! The price you see on products is actually the price you pay. What a concept! Brilliant!
-Trains that depart and arrive on time. And not within a few minutes, but literally exactly on time. I spent four years taking Amtrak back and forth to college, and not once was it ever even half and hour on schedule. Brilliant!
-Heated toilet seats that detect pressure and heat up when you sit on them. Brilliant!

-Today I went with some of the other trainers to Joypolis, a gigantic arcade:


Arcades, called 'Game Centers' in Japan, are all over the place and include a lot more than video games; they usually have pachinko, puzzle games, 'grabber' prize games, photo booths, etc. Joypolis is the largest game center in Okayama, and let me tell you, it was HEAVEN. Why was it heaven? Well, just to the left of the above picture, was...
So, a game center next to a pasta place. But it gets better. Here are some pictures from inside the game center:
ABOVE: Game over man, game over! Here's another shot of the giant animatronic Xenomorph inside of this game:



ABOVE: 'The Lost World', Jurassic Park shooter game. My favorite arcade game of all time. Mike, I finally beat the chameleon dinosaur!

ABOVE: A gigantic gold statue of Sonic the Hedgehog. This sucker was ~10 feet tall.

ABOVE: The legendary 'Dirk Pitt' game that you can also find at Crossroads movie theatre. You fight underwater and shoot at Mutated Marine Lifeforms(tm).

To recap: A gigantic game center, next to a pasta place. And to finish this heavenly picture, next to the pasta place was a Crepe restauraunt. I got a caramel crepe that was like so good it was like eating an orgasm. Seriously, this whole setup is, in a word, (together now...)
...BRILLIANT!

Japanglish

The second day of training is over, and overall I'm enjoying the experience. The trainers are all former teachers and they are very upbeat. The other trainees here are becoming good friends, and I'm sad that after this training period, I'll most likely see them only at one weekend training session a few months from now. One of the other trainees had her 25th birthday today, so we had a little party in the dorm lounge with a cake and reggae music (don't ask).

Last night, we went out for okonomiyaki, a sort of pancake with vegetables and other stuff (?) mixed inside. The chef takes the pancake and puts it on a hotplate right in front of you on the table. My parents may believe that I'm a picky eater, and they're mostly right, but I'm (usually) willing to try new foods. Provided, y'know, that they look edible. Fortunately, almost all restaurants in Japan feature very lifelike displays of fake food near the restaurant entrance, so clueless gaijin such as myself can pick out what to eat with minimal difficulty.

Below are a couple of "Japanglish" pictures that I took around Okayama. With training all day, I won't have much more time to explore the city.

Above: Contrary to what you might think, the Big American Shop is not actually big. My theory is that the founder correctly believed that Americans are...well, BIG.

ABOVE: I assume they manufacture keys here. I assume...

ABOVE: An example of public art that you'll never see in the U.S., for obvious reasons. This is actually a sculpture of the Peach Boy, who is a mythical character from Okayama legend. You can read the whole story here.

ABOVE: A shinto shrine located in the Okayama castle gardens. I assume the sign in the middle reads something like, "Please remove shoes before entering."

~By the way, for you non-computer-savvy people (I'm looking at you, Mom!), you can click on any of the above images to expand the picture. Also note that I've added a link for the WILD MONKEY PARK to the right!

Wanderings

For the past couple of days, I've been wandering around Okayama with the other people in my training group. Yesterday, we walked across the city to visit the castle and the (famous) garden area. The castle was unfortunately closed, but I did see a lot of other intersting things:






<---Here is the castle itself. Impressive, but smaller than I expected.



















<--- This is a view of part of the castle gardens. This is only a small part of a much larger area, all meticulously landscaped. I had the urge to go for a swim...












<---- A bird in a large cage in the gardens. He was a total show-off.

Okayama

After a *fun* and *exciting* 17 hour plane trip to Osaka, I met up with my group of ten other people and the company representatives. We took a bullet train over to the city of Okayama, a two-hour trip West. Those bullet trains sure beat Amtrak--I took the train back and forth to Maryland for four years, and not once was it ever on time.
Right now I'm in a dorm in Okayama next to the training center. A five-day training period begins tomorrow, so I won't have much time to update this blog. I'll try to post some pictures from Okayama in the next couple of days, so stay tuned...