Hamamatsu

I finally get a chance to visit the my host family living in Hamamatsu. If you guys don't know, I went on a homestay program in sec 3, after staying over at their house in Hamamatsu, then I got more interested in Japanese stuff. In case you all don't know, my sec 1 and sec 2 Japanese grades were C6, just one short of failing. If you wonder how come my results were so bad and yet I continued, try to think of what does the Language Center offers that TCHS don't.... please don't tell me you don't know.

Anyway, Hamamatsu is a small town about 250km outside Tokyo, the bullet train takes about 1hr 20min to cover that distance. but my ticket after student discount costs me S$200. Ouch.

Hamamtsu is famous for
1. Seafood (Best Unagi in the whole of Japan, lotsa clams and stuff)
2. Hamanako Lake 浜名湖
3. Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha (Both bikes and Piano) all started in Hamamatsu.
4. Brazilians! They have like a Braziltown (like Chinatown) where it's full of Brazillian stuff. These guys have worked at the factories of the above famous Japanese names, and have settled down in Japan for good.

After finishing my lessons on Wednesday afternoon, I heading down for the bullet train and zoomed my way down. By the time I reached their house, it was already dinner time. We talked a lot, all the way till like 11pm before I went to sleep

Thursday was exciting. My friend and I covered approx. 50km on bicycle, went around the famous lake, shopping center. Another very interesting thing was that there is a Bullet train manufacturing facility in the city, and a test track. He told me if you are willing to fork out 100,000￥ (S$1600), they will let you be the DRIVER of the train for one round around the test track, how cool is that. Then you can go brag that you have driven one of the biggest and fastest thing on ground. (360km/h max speed)

My friend, Mori, graduated from a game making course (CG,music,programming,everything) from some institute like a Poly. But his real interest and work is in Martial Arts. He goes China to take part in a annual martial arts competition. They fight with no weapons and no protection. Plain raw Martial Arts. He may look fat, but trust me, it's all muscles and he says his upper forearm can't take injections anymore. He's currently 3rd on the WORLD ranking. 1st is some 匈奴guy at about 2+ meters, 180kg of muscles. 8 matches, only ever beat him once. 2nd place: surprise! a lady from Hong Kong. So he also teaches Martial Arts at 武馆 all over Japan. He's also a part time policeman and gets assignments when there are highly skilled criminals. Finally, he also takes back game programming assignments.

The younger brother, Yuichi, is the branch head of a 100yen shop. But his real interest and target is a cameraman, so he's working pretty hard on it. The little girl, Azusa, is 11 and is still in Primary School. The mother, works as a translator for Braille. Converting Braille to words and vice versa. The old grandmother who is 90, basically stays at home, cos her legs are bad. They are all active volunteer workers, taking care of Handicapped people and blind people. Really a family with golden hearts.

They have a little farm, so I kop back some onions and leeks. Almost got some strawberries but they not really ripe yet. Their house is small and untidy and stuffed with a lot of old stuff, barely just a passage for 1 person to walk around. 6 people squeezing in a small place. I think my nice presents could be lost in the mountain of things that they have, so sad.

I took a train at about 9pm and reached back dorm at about 11 plus. So sad, but life's like this, seeing them after 8 years felt so different. The little girl was SOOOO cute when she was 2, of course she's still cute now, and she remembers me.

Back to crowded Tokyo, just when I thought half of Tokyo cleared out for overseas holidays or holidays in the rural area, it's still damn crowded, I can basically smell the lady's hair in front of me.

It's golden week in Japan, for some offices, it could be up to max 10 days of holidays. And yesterday, one of the main highways had a jam up to 40km... almost 2/3 of Singapore. (Imagine jam from Clementi to Changi Airport.) Narita International Airport headcount was at 50,000 for 1 day. Tokyo disneyland estimates 870,000 people in these 10 days, the International Expo at Aichi estimates 1.3 million people in 10 days. Oh my god, think I am just going to spend my time in Tokyo, all the tourist attractions, Trains, hotels have all inflated their prices for this season. So no way man... pay more and have to squeeze...