Taking the Miki out of Hasaam

Day #86
Funds: $4200ish
Michael is chilling with the Japs, Korea-phile Yanks, and an assortment of Poms who, turns out, do not seem to be all that whingey.

So I gotta admit, I haven't been the most dedicated little tourist as of yet, partly because I had to recover from the food poisoning fiasco, partly cos Fukuoka doesn't have tons of tourist attractions besides Fukuoka tower (and sorry, the Rialto and Eureka Building were plenty for me, I saw this place from a plane), but mostly because of cash restrictions. What I keep telling myself is I'm in this country for the long haul, I don't have to worry about missing out at this stage, I have to worry about starving before I can find work. I won't be neglecting Shannon's tourist needs though of course, she's part of the reason I've been holding back while by myself. It's also been good being tight because I learned a few things that will save us a bit of cash in terms of what to but for food etc. For example, for the price of 2 decent meals from a cheap restaurant or about 7 or 8 little snacks from something like a 7/11, I can prepare 4 dinners and 3 breakfasts, without even spending all of my daily food budget! To celebrate this discover I went to buy a dictionary, which are generally equivelant to my total daily spending budget, but it turned out they were all one-way and aimed at Japanese people. This means that if you looked up an English word, the dictionary just shows the kanji (the character for that word) without the furigana (how to actually pronounce that word). I don't need that, I can already write a ton of words I don't know how to say in Jap, thanks to Chinese. In fact, many of my conversations with the locals tend to degenerate into me scribbling down characters and them reading aloud ... it's a start.

Speaking of conversations, it's not hard to start one around here. I met quite a few interesting people, (my facebook buddies list is growing =P) except for two guys none of them really speak Japanese at all so when we've gone out places I've felt pressure to ask directions and sort out little confusions, stuff like that is good for forcing you out of your comfort zone. Last week there were a LOT of people on holiday from Korea who were actually American English teachers. It's only a 3-hour boat ride apparently so that's why. So I learned a lot about Korea in my first week in Japan, heheh.

The staff at this hostel have been super friendly, some speak really good English, but others started chatting with me as soon as they realised I could understand them if they spoke in Jap the same way I imagine you would speak to a retarded person. It's actually very encouraging, I feel like I'm just short on experience and vocab, which I'll surely build up over a couple months.

Today was supposed to be the only day I was gonna get to see Miki, but her grandmother fell ill so she had to bail. We'll be looking for more opportunities later but while travelling I'm only going further and further from Nagasaki (where her uni is). This makes me sad, but once I set up base somewhere I'll definitely figure out how to stalk her. It's been 4 years and I'm actually in the same country, little frustrating. But we'll figure something out, I'm not too worried.

Saw some street performers yesterday, super cool! Whoever said Japanese people didn't have any individuality? A chick with an accordion who danced while her partner also danced while juggling and did a couple other things. A dude who made quite intricate characters similar to balloon animals only instead of a giraffe, Mario (as seen on my fb pix)!

The day before, we were greeted by some people who were offering free hugs. I took one instantly, then asked what they were doing this for. Apparently they were spreading "free and love". I decided this really spoke to me, so along with an American girl and a Canadian girl we stuck around for an hour or so. I was probably the most enthusiastic, after learning a couple basic phrases to explain the situation ("furii haggu shimasen ka?" = "won't you free hug me?") I was off! We agreed that even if we were rejected, a smile from a passerby counted as a victory as we would have affected their day in a small way. It was a lot of fun, I was in a good mood for the rest of the day after that.

One other discovery I made which was quite encouraging: a lot of youth hostels will take foreigners in for free if they work 2 or 3 hours a day 5 days out of 7 for free. So now I've got 2 safety nets! Well gotta check out of this place, tonight I'm leaving for Hiroshima. Shannon had better bring fresh news of Australia, cos you guys been way too slack!