day 5 - to the castle!

08/06/07 17:02
as i wrote yesterday i have now moved into the new otani hotel. it is in fact a real nice hotel and i suppose not a very cheap one. tis morning i packed my stuff an mochizuki showed me around his company (i still have now idea what kind of company it actually is) and then we drove here. the streets were crowded, so it took us a while. this hotel is immediately next to the beautiful osaka castle and its huge park. btw., the castle was destroyed in a fire (if i understood correctly) and was later rebuilt. the inside of the castle is now a museum and does not look like a castle at all. afterwards there was a (and still is) y`smen leader meeting. they started with listening to the hymn and it was all very formal and serious. i didn`t understand a word, but luckily i didn`t have to stay and i checked in at the hotel. tonight there`s some kind of party, i understand. i`ll write some postcards now and hang my clothes into the cupboards.

22:40
so, the party turned out to be some kind of a dinner event. good thing that i wore my suit (mais sans cravatte). there was a lot of food, most of it quite tasty, a lot of beer too, but it`s my impression that i can drink a good deal more than your average japanese. at least some of them seemed pretty drunk when the evening was over. i talked to many people (there were about 100 id say) and i had to introduce myself in front of the crowd. during the meal there was a show by two magicians which was quite nice. noticeable is the japanese habit of walking up to foreigners to use their english (even though everyone will tell you that they cannot speak english at all). when i went to the castle, several children came up to me, saying something in english (taking me for an american, most likely) and seemed pretty shocked to hear me responding in japanese, haha. business cards: 13. money: 3890
and, what`s weird: i was supposed to be in kyoto from june 14-21 but now it looks like i`ll stay at another house first. i hope i`ll get more details soon.