Onomichi

Posted on 2005/09/10 04:03:39 (September 2005).

[Friday 9th September]
Went for a day out in Onomichi, a small town not too far away from Hiroshima. It seemed like a really nice place, but I found it hard too enjoy to start with as it was just too hot. Listen, Japan's weather, IT IS SEPTEMBER NOW. It is supposed to be getting cooler. In England people are probably already putting on thick coats and shivering, yet here in Japan it is still painfully hot.
Not really a great deal to report about our day out - just had a general wander around, saw some temples and a few alleyways which were all nice. Probably the highlight was the waffle cafe, called "Common", which Chie had been to before years and years ago (apparently she lived in Onomichi for a while as a child).

Yum! Sounds good - a waffle cafe. Never seen one before. Is it a coffee-and-maple-syrup-on-waffle type of thing? Or something more Japanese?

Posted by Nigel at 2005/09/10 11:05:33.

Yes Nigel - I think they have stolen the European concept of waffles in its entirety... It's an odd thing really - waffles are not really that big in England, which is but a few miles from France and Belgium (the countries typically associated with waffles, so far as my limited knowledge ofthe subject goes). In Japan, however, they are everywhere - you run the risk of tripping over them in the street.

Japan has this odd obsession with Europe which I don't fully understand. You don't get a great deal of South American / Middle Eastern / Indian sub-Continent restaurants etc in Japan, but there are a huge amount of French and Italian inspired places.

There is probably some historical reason for this, but I don't know what it is!

Posted by John at 2005/09/10 15:22:48.

About the reason (comment 2), why don't you ask ? I'm curious.

Posted by Sheri at 2005/09/10 18:39:34.

It’s interesting to notice that Japan and France (including Belgium) share a common culture for TV cartoons. Since back to the early 80s (and up to recently), our channels were literally flooded with Japanese cartoons which, oddly enough, couldn’t find their way in English speaking countries. Why is that, I wonder? Something to do with affinities, but which ?

Posted by Sheri at 2005/09/10 18:52:56.

Sheri, John et al... Actually Japan, France and Italy share this cartoon culture. I t's amazing how the major TV cartoons from the 80's were translated and imported both in France and Italy but only later in England... The root of the problem, at least for what I know of Japanese culture after my studies, living and now working experiences, is mostly due to the fact that France and Italy are very fascinating to Japanese people. 90% due to the history, the peculiarity of these two countries and the cusine. I am not saying that England doesn't have them (well actually...) but you can't compare the Italian stereotype of Pizza and Mandolin, with the Coal and Pint english counterpart... :) Remember that Japan is also a very racist country, black people have been accepted only recently, and anything Indian or something like that is looked in a very bad way....

Posted by Lox at 2005/09/11 23:29:19.

at an insitutional level, all foreigners are treated badly in japan.

Posted by zzz at 2005/09/12 11:40:22.

Especially for Lorenzo...
Ciao!
When I did my Italian lessons at night school, the tutor brought in lots of cartoons of Andy Capp. Evidently this male chauvanist was highly regarded in Italy. The tutor said he brought them in because Andy was always using the subjunctive tense of verbs....
(for those not in the know, the cartoon ran in a daily tabloid newspaper and depicted a lazy, out-of-work man, smoking, drinking beer and occasionally beating his wife....!)

Posted by Mum at 2005/09/12 20:13:00.

sounds all right to me?

Posted by zzz at 2005/09/12 22:31:47.

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