Day Twenty-Five

Lindsay loves Kochi but like anyone, she has a few pet peeves about her town. The biggest one, is Anpanman.

Anpanman is a superhero whose head is made out of bread. "Pan" is the Japanese word for bread (taken from the French "Pain") so "Anpan" is bread with red bean paste filling. He helps kids feel better by giving them pieces of his head to eat - this is pretty weird because A) Wouldn't he run out of his own head? and B) That's weird! Giving children parts of you to put in their mouths is a weird thing to do!!! Name one other superhero who encourages people to eat him...

EDIT: I have since learned that Uncle Jam, a kind baker and the Gepetto to Anpanman's Pinnochio, consistently bakes him new heads. This only makes it weirder.

Anpanman's arch nemesis is Baikinman, a bacteria (because what else is going to fight bread) and he's not doing a great job, because Anpanman is everywhere. The show has been on television since 1988...and is in the guiness book of world records for most characters in a TV show...with a staggering 1768.  He originated in Kochi, and damn Kochi is proud of creating Anpanman. So much so, that when we changed trains in Maibara, we discovered our seats were in the Anpanman car. 

There are theme everythings here in Japan. Theme cafes, theme restaurants, theme pachinko parlors, and even theme trains. They really go all out too. Anpanman and friends are all over the exterior of the car, all over the ceiling and walls inside, and behind every fold-down tray is a picture of one of the characters. The one behind my tray was a baker...I don't want to imagine what  his relationship with Anpanman must be like (Stop, I created you!). 

The most hilarious part, is that Anpanman himself does the announcements on the train - no emotionless Japanese robot girl like on the subway, or from a GPS, but an animated and excited Anpanman, telling you about the train, the emergency exits, where we were going to stop, etcetera. 

Lindsay hates Anpanman. 

But we got through the trainride without incident and arrived in Kochi.

I'd been griping throughout most of the trip that I wished I'd had a way to bring my tripod with me. All across Canada i'd been shooting with my giant video tripod, with excellent results, but it was far too big to take on the plane. I'd had a tiny blacks photo tripod at home, but opted against taking it, thinking it'd be too much for the plane as well. I regretted it ever since, spouting things like "I'd kill a thousand men for my tripod right now!!!"

Anyway, Lindsay had taken my comments to heart and gotten in touch with a photographer friend of hers, who was kind enough to lend me his tripod. A tiny little photography style tripod, but with fluid head and light years ahead of having no tripod at all. We stopped by his apartment and picked it up, before heading over to Kochi's open-air market.

All the farmers collect in the streets in a huge row of tent-like structures to sell veggies, fruits, and...beetles. The kids love 'em. 

We went from there into the indoor market nearby, where they had a Studio Ghibli store, and an NHK store, where I saw this guy:

I love Domo-kun! He's like Japan's Alf, he's brown, furry, lovable, and he eats cats. We also saw something I'd heard about, but hadn't seen yet.

This is a store where you can buy the school uniform of any school in the prefecture, boys and girls. You would think this would be for the students of said schools. But it's not. This is for the same people that buy out of the used-panties vending machines (something else i'd heard of, but not yet seen). I'll leave the rest up to you. 

We left the market after stopping for a bite at a vegetarian place (a rarity) and headed for Kochi castle. 

Kochi castle was pretty neat - Ryoma, a famous Samurai is from Kochi (Anpanman's not their only claim to fame) and this was where he hung out.

It's a very cool traditional style multi-level pagoda, with huge and narrow stairs leading from one level to the next. 

I am too tall for Japan. I smash my head on everything and sometimes pipes are too low over stairways, so I need to walk on the wrong side of the stairs. The cars just accommodate me, and every doorway is out for blood. Many castle entranceways are built with intentionally low ceilings to prevent the enemy from using swords or spears, so with the addition of the tripod to my backpack (which was slightly taller than me) I was just a disaster in Kochi castle. Maneuvering up those stairs would be hard enough, but add an inch or so in the tripod on my backpack and every motion was super-awkward. I'm not even that tall!

It was pretty gorgeous though - and amazingly well-preserved. That's another cool thing about Japan. They have things that are upwards of eight-hundred years old to contribute to their history and culture. They had a surcoat on display that Ryoma actually wore. Sentences on museum displays start with things like "In the year 1185". Canada wasn't even a twinkle in the British eye in 1185! We're so young compared to these other countries, it's no wonder we have an identity crisis. We're just the teenage country in the midst of coming-of-age, trying to find ourselves in a largely adult world, with only our brash older sibling to the south to give us any indication if we're doing it right. They're not the older sibling whose footsteps you'd necessarily want to follow in, anyway.

Lindsay called some of her fellow JETs from the Kochi area (seeing as she was back home from vacation now) and we all went into downtown to see The Dark Knight Rises. It was neat to meet Lindsay's friends, and it was the largest number of English speakers i'd seen in one spot since arriving. They have a pretty good community, all these small-towners, and Kochi city is sort of the centre of everywhere they hail from. We were worried that due to scheduling, I wasn't going to get to meet anybody, but it worked out nicely after all.

After the movie (on which I won't comment) one of Lindsay's friends gave us a lift over to Susaki, where Lindsay's car was parked. We drove up into the mountains in the dark, leaving me to imagine the scenery until tomorrow. We quietly hauled our baggage into Lindsay's apartment (she shares a wall with one of her schools' principals) and promptly fell asleep. It was a long, long day of travelling and Lindsay had to go back to work in the morning. I was planning on sleeping in, doing laundry, and catching up on writing the ol' blog. It was nice to know I was going to be able to sleep in the same place for a few days. 

New town to explore! But first, to rest up.