Japanese Swimming Pools

So just a quick update on things so far. Our class portion of the trip ended last Friday. I went to Kyoto again last Friday with Stephanie and Hannah for some last minute souvenir shopping and to hang out. Saturday, I just kind of hung around Otsu for the day and made my host family Mac and Cheese because they had never had it.  Crazy right? Today was an interesting day, and also where the title of this post comes from. So first off, my host dad, brother and I went to a ramen house. It was my first time to a ramen shop so I didn't really know what to expect. We get to this small restaurant and my host dad goes inside and gets us a number. We then waited outside for about 10 minutes until we ordered and got called in. We waited on a bench inside while they set up 3 seats at a bar for us. We sat down and after another couple minutes our food came. It was so good! I have only ever had instant ramen and I was always just kind of lukewarm about it but this ramen was delicious! After finishing lunch, I went to SUMS to meet up with the other international students to play some sports which was fun, except one of the other teams players got hurt while playing basketball. Luckily enough, like my friend Miriam pointed out, everyone here is pretty much a doctor so he got him all taken care of and played badminton for a bit until I had to go home for dinner. My host dad was teaching me how to make Okonomiyaki. I was very excited because I had been itching to learn how to cook Japanese food for people when I got home. I figured it would be a good way to help share my experiences more. Its hard to describe what Okonomiyaki is but I will try. It is kind of like a Japanese cross between a pancake and an omelet topped with a special sauce and mayo. It sounds weird but its delicious. I'll post a picture too so you guys can see what it looks like. 

After letting dinner digest, my host dad, brother and I went to the community pool. Now the differences weren't HUGE, but after swimming competitively for almost 8 years of my life and life guarding for 4 years, I notice these things.  So first we walked into this large sports complex and went to this ticket machine next to the front desk and bought 3 tickets to swim and took them to the front desk where we exchanged them for plastic chips with rubber bands on them. We went to the locker room, which was pretty small compared to most locker rooms you find in the US, and changed into our swim suits. Now all I brought with me was one of my old work suits, but everyone else was wearing jammers or one piece suits, depending on gender of course.  I thought this was a little strange because even thought this was a lap pool only, in the US unless you swim competitively, you probably don't even know what a jammer is. Now in America, its suggested that you shower before entering the pool, but nobody does. In Japan, they found a way to enforce this quite effectively. The entryway to the pool had motion activated showers in the ceiling that formed a barrier of hot water that you had to pass through before you could even get into the pool area. I thought this was interesting, I mean there had to have been a way around it for staff and people who for some reason or another came to a lap pool and couldn't get wet but still it was effective. I was just glad that the water was a pleasant temperature and not like freezing cold like I was expecting. The next difference was that each lane was specifically assigned for a purpose. 3 lanes were lap swim only, 1 lane for walking and 1 lane for kicking, with a side area for kids that was shallower than the rest of the pool. I thought this was nice so that way if you were trying to swim you wouldn't get caught behind some chatty Kathys with kick boards, moving at a leisurely pace. The last big thing I noticed were what I thought were sinks. On the wall by the entryway was what I thought to be a bank of sinks, which I thought was weird anyway but after getting out of the pool, my host dad walks over to them and puts his face over one of them and pushes the handle. They turned out to be eye washes to get the chlorine (I think they use chlorine in their pools) out of your eyes. I thought this was a great idea because I feel like a lot of the people at the pool I work at would love this. Okay, now to mention a few things about the locker room that I forget to mention above. All of the lockers were coin operated. You put in a 10 yen coin and the key (which was on a watch like wristband) came out when you shut and locked the door. Now I figured that this was like any other coin operated locker and that once your coin was in, it was gone. This was not the case. Before we got in the pool, I realized that I needed that plastic chip with the rubber band to get in. "Crap" I thought "There goes 10 yen down the drain," but when I put my key back in, out popped my coin. I guess the coin just acts as collateral for use of the locker, which doesn't make a whole lot on sense considering that 10 yen is approximately $0.12. Also, they had a hair dryer. Not one of those hand dryers they just put a few feet higher up so you could stand under it and get your hair half dry, but a real hair dryer that was just plugged into the outlet there. I thought this was strange and awfully trusting of people, but as demonstrated by a previous post, Japanese really don't steal anything (except bicycles  and umbrellas apparently). 

Well now you are pretty much caught up on my adventures. I still haven't finished the kanpo post I have mentioned a few times now but it's almost done so hopefully in the next few days I can finish it. I start my internship/ hospital observation tomorrow so that should be interesting, but for now it's off to bed so I can get enough sleep for the long days ahead.