Polls were right for this time and Obama won. It seems for the first time American and the rest of the world agree on something… I am not going to comment any advantage/disadvantage about this election, but I want to share with you this video.
It is quite long, and he does not really say anything he had not said before. But, I want to point something out. Look at the people there. I have read that they expected one million people, in a city with “just” 8 million seems a lot of people to be out on a tuesday night… So, that is a lot of people. And look at those people: they are just there because they want to be part of the historical moment and because of him, not just because he is a democrat. They are there not to only to celebrate the victory, they want to listen to what he says: they do not interrupt him more than twice in 18 minutes! Most of them listen to him and are about to cry… Quite impressive. These American make everything “King Size”, like the burgers…
These have been the first US elections I am not sleeping while they recount the votes (advantages of being time-shifted). So, I have paid more attention to the way they have to count the votes for the president… Each state has a number of “Electoral votes” (that is familiar to me, in Spain we have a number of representatives per province), and the one who has more votes (people voting him)… is the one who gets all the electoral votes!! So, if Obama wins 51% – 49% in a state, he gets like if he had won 100%-0%. That means that Obama was supported by a 52% of the voters, but he got a 63% of the electoral votes. Quite an important difference and in other not so clear cases it will probably lead to some injustice (from my point of view)…
That’s all for now about Obama, US, elections, etc. Now, back to Japan.
Coming back from Koya-san, I spent a couple of hours in Osaka to do some sightseeing. It was more than enough, as Osaka is just another megalopolis in Japan, with very few tourist spots. Here you have a couple of pictures showing one of the musts in Osaka, its castle…
All big cities in Japan are the same. Some very old buildings (most of the reconstructed, though), with amazing new buildings, and most of the times, very close one to each other.
This is going to be a strange week.
* Yesterday: it all started by meeting David Hasselhoff in Shibuya. Yes, we met Michael Knight or Mitch Buchannan in one of the biggest cities in the world during a walk.
* Today: is one of those bank holidays you only find in Japan: Culture Day. 🙂 So it is going to be a short week. 🙂
These are two tombs in Koya-san, with something you may see in many other places in Japan: food and beverages. I guess they pretend them not to be thirsty in the near future… but I do not know the exact reason behind this… I will try to get some more information.
Today, I’ve been the whole day at home. Half of it sleeping, recovering from the tough week with the guests; and the other half preparing a trip I am going to do in Christmas… and suffering some allergy. 🙁 Therefore, I have not been out tonight in spite of being Saturday night.
But I did something else. I decided to walk from home towards a place I had never been and look for some place to have dinner in. If you remember what I wrote a couple of months ago, Tokyo neighbourhoods vary a lot from the area close to the stations to further places. I live relative far from my station, and today I decided to walk towards another station which, I realized today, is almost as close as “mine”.
Anyway, when I arrived to the next station’s area, I started finding lots of shops, restaurants and some more people than earlier. It is a pity that I did not bring this time the camera with me, as I saw some interesting things. I saw two hairdressers, with all the personnel training with dummies (Saturday at around 9 pm!) and a Spanish restaurant with a big flag, and no Spaniard in it (it seems every neigbourhood in Tokyo needs to have at least one spanish restaurant).
Finally, I went into a small sushi place, the only restaurant in a non-main street… It is normal that they looked surprised when they saw a western face sitting there. They understood quickly that I do not speak a word in Japanese and they (owners and all customers) did their best to communicate and did not wait long until they started asking me where I come from, how long I have been in Japan, why I am in Japan, where I work, how old I am, if I am single or not,… From all these questions, they are showed special interest in the company I work for. This makes a point, and you can realize how they use it when they talk one to each other about you… I had read about the importance of this in the japanese society, but today I experienced it.
After that, I walked back to my place, but using a different path. I was not in a hurry, so I could spend some time trying out new ways. And in a small corner, next to the tracks, I saw a small bar, from outside seemed very noisy and with lots of people. It reminded me to the atmosphere in some bars in Seville, so I looked in through the window, and found out a couple of paella pans next to the window… What…? I could not see anything else due to some curtains, but I decided to go to the door, and check why those paellas were there… And I checked that they were not the only spanish element of the bar: the name is “Barrera” (remember: it is placed next to the tracks), there are tapas and vinos in the menu, spanish pottery, bull fighting and sevillanas posters, a Spain’s map, … It was the first spanish bar (not restaurant) I have seen in Tokyo. When I was standing at the door, someone opened it, and I just went in… It was full of japanese people, and also an italian guy living for some years in Tokyo was hanging out with a friend. Just two people in the bar apart from him spoke English, and those who did, surprisingly could also say a few words of Spanish… Guess what they asked me, and what was then repeated to everybody… Yes, the same questions as in the sushi place, and special attention to the professional activity…
And now that I am reflecting about this, I remember another example, when we visited Yokohama. We asked a couple to take a picture from us, and it happened to be a spanish guy with his japanese wife. We talked for a while with him, and we did not talk about work… But his wife, suddenly, asked us what we do for work. The guy was visibly a bit embarrassed, as he knew it is not that common in Spain to ask that in the first two minutes of conversation…
But in Japan it is. So, be ready for that.