Welcome into My World
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "RogueNull" journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
|
03:37 am
[Link] |
A last few words
1. Hello everyone!
2. How are you?
3. 4 years ago, I climbed these stairs, walked onto the stage, and nervously looked out into a sea of faces I didn’t know.
4. Then, we had classes together.
5. Some were fun and some were not too fun, but soon we got to know each other.
6. And today, I look out at you, and see friends.
7. Now, I am returning home. It sounds very strange to say that because for the past 4 years, this HAS been my home, and it is very hard to say goodbye.
8. Before I came to Japan, I worried about how my life would be here in Japan.
9. Would I make friends?
10. Would I be able to teach students?
11. Would I be able to eat anything?
12. But, because of you I quickly became comfortable living here.
13. When I was sad, you made me happy.
14. When I was lonely, you talked to me.
15. When I was tired, you gave me energy.
16. When my lessons didn’t work, you did your best to understand me.
17. But most of all, when I didn’t know anyone, you smiled and said hello.
18. I hope you had a lot of fun, and learned some English at the same time.
19. I hope you remember the karuta, the interview and sentence making games
20. and Slime and Penguin we threw around during the bakudan game.
21. Please keep in touch with me. I have given my address in America to your homeroom teacher. If you send me a letter or email, I promise to send you one too.
22. I hope you think that you have a friend in America. I’ll see you again someday, so I won’t say, “Goodbye.” Instead, I’ll say, “See you again!”
23. And to all your brothers and sisters in high school and first year college students, please tell them I said, “Hello!” and “Good luck!”
24. And finally, please be friends with the new ALT like you were friends with me. Make him feel as welcome as you made me. But no kanchos please.
25. Hopefully, I’ll see you again at the Shirasawa Natsumatsuri! Thank you for everything you have done for me over the past 4 years.
26. Please don’t forget me. I won’t forget you.
27. Finally, I want to share with you my favorite saying.
Don’t pray for a miracle. Be the miracle.
28. この4年間、本当にお世話になりました。 See you again!
Current Mood:  sad
|
|
09:29 pm
[Link] |
Moving forward with dry eyes and a wet forehead
Today was my last day at Shirasawa Junior high, and I must say, it was a lot less emotional for me than I thought it was going to be. I thought I was going to be in tears as I read my speech and received my obligatory bouquet of flowers. However, everything was quite composed (much to my relief).
But let’s start at the beginning of my day. As I left my house, my spirits dropped. Today was the exact kind of day that I fear in Japan. Overcast, humid, with the sun shining brightly through the clouds. Today, the humidity was so high, there was mist in the air, and it was over 80 degrees. In my first class, it was so humid that I actually had problems breathing a bit. All the students were completely wilted in their desks, and the teacher and I did our best not to collapse on the floor. During second period, I took a glance at the thermometer in the class. It said 30 degrees celcius (86 F) and 85 percent humidity. I mean… COME ON!!!!!
Anyways, the worst didn’t happen. I thought that it was going to break 33 or 35 and still be over 85% (I’ve had days like this… and you just wanna die…). As it turned out, the fog turned into a light drizzle (still 30 degrees and muggy, but at least there was more cool moisture in the air) and a nice breeze started blowing. Right now, sitting in the staff room, it is still pretty hot, sticky and nasty, but at least there is a breeze. Plus the 3 fans going full on doesn’t hurt either…
After we finished the first 3 periods of the morning, the kids all moved into the gym to begin the ceremony marathon as I like to call it… We had an awards ceremony, Prefectural Meet athlete introduction, the End of Term Ceremony, and then finally my Farewell ceremony. It was nice that mine was last because since everyone wanted to just leave, nobody cried (or at least nobody I saw). I am solid as long as I don’t see anyone cry. If someone starts crying, I am gone. So, I gave my goodbye speech, got my nice bouquet of flowers, and that was the end. Nice, short, and to the point.
After lunch, the kids cleaned a bit and then headed home. Meanwhile, the staff had a wonderful meeting (which I was able to get out of). So I just sat on the steps outside the staff room and reminisced about my time here. When I finally have to hand the responsibility over to the next ALT, I think it’ll finally hit me. And then my dry eyes won’t be so dry.
Current Location: Japan
Current Mood: quiet
|
|
07:32 pm
[Link] |
Gather round kiddies! It’s time for the Kyushu roundup!
For my last Golden Week trip in Japan, my friends and I decided to make a trip down to Kyushu. I must admit that at the early stages of our planning, I was a little worried about going to Kyushu. None of us knew anything about it except Nagasaki was there. How the heck can you fill a week with just Kyushu? Then we went. Not only did we fill the week, but I now have a list of things to see when I go back.
So first for the finances. The trip ran around 700 per person for airfare and hotel. Subsequent train fare and the rent-a-car probably bumped the price to closer to 850-900. All told, I probably spent close to 1700 after food, miscellaneous travel, and souvenirs. (Where all that money went, I don’t know… but the food was pretty damn expensive.)
Day 1 – Transit to Nagasaki – April 28
Our first day began with an early start from Motomiya station. To catch our 11:55 flight, we decided to take an 8am train to Haneda. After a couple transfers from trains to shinkansens to monorails, we arrived at the Haneda Airport station a little after 10:30. At that point, you know what I realized? You really don’t need to arrive at the airport as early for domestic flight as for an international flight. However, you might need a bit more time if you get your destination airport wrong… I had assumed that we were flying into Kita-Kyushu Airport (which roughly translates as Northern Kyushu Airport) in Hakata. I thought, “Hakata is in the north of Kyushu, so that must be another name for Kita-Kyushu Airport.” Japanese airports sometimes have a couple names in addition to their official name. For example, the airport next to Nagoya is sometimes called Nagoya Airport, sometimes Chubu Airport, and sometimes something else… which I can’t remember right now. Based on these assumptions, Steve guided us to the ANA’s Kita-Kyushu Airport check-in desk at Haneda’s Terminal 1… only to be told by a confused looking ticket agent that we were in the wrong terminal. Oops. Hakata is in fact different from Kita-Kyushu. Hakata and Kita-Kyushu are different cities… separated by about 40 miles… As they say in Japanese, shimatta. Crap. But thanks to the fact that we were 90 minutes early, we took a relaxed stroll to the next terminal, checked in, got our boarding passes, and checked our luggage with about 1 hour to spare. We had a leisurely lunch on the roof of the terminal which allowed us a very nice view of flights taking off. (It also meant that we had to listen to all the engines as we ate... Not exactly a nice atmosphere for eating…) We arrived in Hakata after a smooth 90 minute flight.
After disembarking and collecting our luggage (The luggage tag says FUK. Hehehe. I have such a juvenile mind.), we took a limited express out of the city bound for our first stop of Nagasaki. First of all, I have a couple things to say about Kyushu trains. First. Damn. Second. Damn. Kyushu has some very VERY nice trains. When we first got on board the Kamome (the seagull) for Nagasaki, we thought we had gone into the green car (first class). We had black false leather upholstered chairs, wooden parquet floors, frosted glass doors, and soft mood lighting. We arrived in Nagasaki, where we were forced to get off (Wouldn’t you wanna stay onboard that swanky train?) At this point, I snapped a picture of the green car. Not quite the overstuffed chairs, fireplace and brandy snifters like I had assumed I’d find, but it was very nice. Lots more leg room plus a stand-alone drink stand. If you ever hear that JR Kyushu went bankrupt, you’ll know why.
When we arrived in Nagasaki, we were met at the station by Pete, our wayward fourth member who had gone ahead to scout things out and prepare the locals for our majestic arrival. I’d have to say he did a very bad job with the preparations. No parades, no flower petals, and certainly no elephants. Just him. But anyways, we went to our hotel, got ourselves checked into our massive 6 person room (there were only the 4 of us), and then went out to meet Pete’s friend and his girlfriend for dinner. We wandered around and found a lovely, homely, hole in the wall restaurant and had a yummy meal of yakisoba, etc. Some of us however were not too impressed by the amount of gnats, etc flying around inside… our cups of water. I said, it’s just protein! I then made sure my water had no protein added. We also wandered down into the Temple district on the outskirts of Nagasaki. After returning and making some preparations for the next day, we went to sleep. As a not so amusing side note, it was just before I left my house that morning that I found mouse droppings and a big hole at the bottom of my two trash bags (but no mice). That made me feel a whooooooooooooooooooole lot better about leaving for a weeklong trip with mice playing in my house.
Day 2 – Nagasaki – April 29
We began the second day by eating a hearty breakfast of Lotteria (And coffee for Pete) at a place in front of the station. Following this healthy completely fat-free meal, we headed off to Peace Park and the Atomic Memorial Museum. Nagasaki has a wonderful, quaint downtown transit system consisting of 4 lines of old fashioned lightrail streetcars. These trains run up and down the spine of the city departing every 8-10 minutes. To save time, the trains don’t turn around at their destination. The driver simply moves (or runs) to the other driver’s seat at the opposite end of the tram and off it goes again. Each ride is 100 yen regardless of where you get on or off. We got an all-you-can-ride free pass (or nomihodai as Pete likes to call it) for 500 yen and quickly made that money back. Our first stop of the day was the Atomic Bomb Museum. This museum was quite interesting, although a bit sad. Museums about human tragedy are always a bit hard to walk through, and this one was no different. This museum was heavy, but it didn’t seem as heavy as the one in Hiroshima (heavy, not heavy-handed). For me, it’s always hard to image the scale of these bombs. I can’t wrap my brain around the idea of seeing an explosion a mile away and still getting instantly killed by the blast. And these were bombs from 60 years ago. You know there are a LOT larger bombs now, namely that 50 megaton Soviet H Bomb that can give you 3rd degree burns from 100km away… (you get a 3rd degree burn by getting caught in a burning building… not just by spilling some hot water on yourself.) Another rather sad thing was that just as we were leaving the museum, we saw a couple of Japanese women deciding whether or not to go into the museum. “How long does this take?” they asked. The staff said, “About 30 minutes.” The women said, “That’s too long. Let’s go.” I always hope that in these situations, people have other legitimate time constraints, like they are on a guided tour, they only have 30 minutes for lunch, or they have 10 consecutive “Cup o noodles” they need to make. Maybe it’s just me, but spending 30 minutes at a museum of this importance seems like time well spent to me.
After this, we went to Peace Park where we saw a solitary black pillar marking the hypocenter of the blast. Beside it, the city had moved the only remaining buttress of _______ Cathedral, the largest Catholic Cathedral in Asia, which was destroyed by the bomb. Nearby, cases held the thousands of paper cranes folded by students across Japan and delivered to Nagasaki. Then we walked a short distance to the statue garden where nations of the world had donated works of art dedicated to world peace. After taking a picture with the giant blue man, we went to visit the One-legged-Torii. When it was built, this torii was part of a normal shrine. As an odd occurrence, half of the torii was destroyed by the atomic blast, but the other half remains standing to this day (after some reinforcing). At the base was another rather interesting site. An approximately 15 foot long no parking zone… I saw it on TV!
Then as per Pete’s request, we headed off to Glover Gardens. Many years ago, a Scotsman Mr. Glover (I can’t remember his first name right now) came to Japan and began a small industrial revolution in Nagasaki. As he was the first in the region to mechanize, he brought over many of Japan’s first machines. Close to his famous gardens is a sign proclaiming Japan’s first telegraph. Then, after watching his goods being transported by inefficient means (ie by Japanese peasants running back and forth from the docks to his factories), he built Japan’s first railway (short as it was). His gardens were quite nice, showcasing many nice model ships, flower gardens, fountains, etc. At the exit, there was an exhibit on the floats for the summer festival Nagasaki holds, complete with dragon dancing props, floats and mikoshi. This night, we went down and had _______ for dinner and then we called it a night.
Day 3 – The Epic Drive – April 30
Day 3 began with a bit of stuff from Day 1. After being unable to send out my house keys so that my supervisor could put some mouse traps down in my house, on Day 3, the post office opened and at 9 on the dot, I went down and mailed my keys off. Following this, with Pete and Steve as drivers, we began the epic cross-island drive to Beppu. Thanks to the bad resolution of my maps and the confusing directions on the navi, we drove up into the hills around Nagasaki before we finally hit the expressway and tore out across the island. It was a 2 hour drive out to our stopovers in Oita prefecture. Our first destination was the gorges at ======. After seeing the pictures in the magazines, I must admit that I was rather unimpressed by what I saw. The gorge and the bridges across it were quite scenic, but it wasn’t quite the massive scenery I was hoping for. Still, it was a beautiful day, and it felt nice to get out under some sunlight. We walked around, took some pictures, then headed for some cliffs I also saw in my brochures. These were even less impressive than the gorges, and I was left quite disappointed again. The cliffs also had a cave which a monk had hewn out of the cliff face. Now, there is a car tunnel running right next to the cave (which makes the hand dug cave a lot less impressive… We had lunch at a nice little restaurant at the rest stop there. I had me some tasty yama imo soba. =) As we were finishing our meal, the owner came out and had a little chat with us. He suggested that we go see a temple a couple miles up the road. It was famous for having 500 jizo (small stone monk) statues. I only remember seeing a small blurb on the temple in my guidebook, but everyone seemed interested, so after lunch we headed over. It was actually the coolest thing we saw that day. First, in order to access the temple, we took a chairlift up the side of the mountain. This was the first time I had ever gotten on or off a chairlift without skiis on… or without snow for that matter. It is actually a bit harder than you might think. When you get off, you kinda have to run away from the chair pretty quickly so you don’t get scooped back up. After the chairlift, we proceeded a little ways to the temple itself. It was slightly carved into the mountain itself, giving us lots of shade as we went in. At this particular temple, instead of writing your wishes on “ema” or wooden boards, you wrote your wishes on “shamoji” or rice scoopers. The cave with the 500 jizo in it, had these shamoji all over the cave, where ever the wooden framework would allow. As the saying goes “when in Rome,” Stephanie and I shelled out the 800 yen for a shamoji, wrote a couple of wishes on it, and hung ours with the rest of them in the cave.
After this, we got back in the car, and drove on another couple of hours towards Beppu itself. Our trip was made a lot more scenic and a bit more crazy by the fact that Navi decided we should drive through the mountains. And when I mean drive through the mountains, I mean drive on roads that not even the experts on Initial D would attempt. Still, somehow, mostly thanks to Pete’s driving skills and Steve’s navigating abilities (except for that one time when he said we should take a 90 right instead of a 90 left), we arrived in Beppu intact before sundown. We navigated around the mess of one way streets, and got to our hotel Kamenoi, which was surprisingly nice (given it was the cheapest place I could find the catalog that my travel agent gave me).
That night, I ran out to get a set of headphones (which I had heroically forgotten at home, as usual) and had a nice dinner at a little gyoza restaurant somewhere in the main shopping district. The night ended with me deciding never to eat at Joyful again (no matter how many 100s of locations they had in Kyushu).
Day 4 – The Epic Drive Episode 2 – May 1
Today began our second epic drive of the trip. However, it started out very leisurely. We woke up, checked out, and went off to explore the “Jigoku Meguri” or Tour of the Hells. Beppu owes its reputation to the many natural hot springs dotting the city, fed by volcanic activity occurring all around Japan. What makes Beppu different, is that in addition to hot springs which are used only as spas, Beppu also has maintained some hot springs which are not diluted with cooler water and which have very unusual color properties. These hot springs are referred to as “Jigoku”. The first Jigoku we visited was not actually a part of the official tour. It was called ______________, and was just up the road from the main area. At this Jigoku, hot volcanic gases combined with spring water and ash? had created bubbling pools of what looked like hot oatmeal. However, this oatmeal was roughly 90 degrees hot (water boils at 100), and there were many signs around the Jigoku telling people NOT to try to touch this mud. I was also a bit worried by seeing dried mud splattered all the way across the walking path, indicating how far this mud could actually fly…
After this Hell, we visited the Umi Jigoku (part of the official Jigoku Meguri). The name means, “Ocean Hell.” This hell featured a pool with water as blue as any Caribbean sea. It was quite beautiful and looked very relaxing, aside from the fact that there was some very suspicious looking steam rising from it, given that it was 90 degrees.
We then went next door to Kamado Jigoku (since we had bought a book of tickets to see all the hells. This one wasn’t quite as cool, as the main point seemed to be a large cooking pot (as people used to use the water from this Jigoku to cook meals. I kinda doubt the intelligence of anyone using onsen water to cook with, but… I suppose these people’s ancestors are still alive… Then we walked over to the Shiro Jigoku. At this hell, the pond was a milky white, and they had a small selection of tropical fish, along with a small school of piranha. Then, looking at our Lonely Planet guidebook, we decided to skip the next two Jigoku because as the book warned us, we had no interest in seeing animals in hell.
The next hell we visited was the Chinoike Jigoku. Of all the hells, this was the one I was looking forward to the most. Chi no ike roughly translates to “Pond of Blood.” I really wanted to see this one, not just because it was supposed to look like a boiling pond of blood, but also because a speech, that my speech contests students recite, talks about the Buddhist hell which has a Pond of Blood.
And the Pond of Blood did not disappoint. After going through the entrance (and through the gift shop which was, oddly, before the Pond of Blood, we arrived at the steaming Pond of Blood. Due to red clay particles being suspended in the water, the whole spring looked like a pond of hot, steaming, translucent blood. Each of us also took our obligatory picture in front of the pond of blood. “Smile with the pond of blood!” After the pond of blood came the final hell, Tatsumaki hell which means Tornado hell. I don’t know why it was called that because there was no tornado. In fact, it was a geyser. Think Old faithful, and then think of it being 10 times smaller. We went in (also through the gift shop) and sat down with some other Japanese people on some bench seating around the geyser. Guides at the hell told us that it would be about 20 minutes before the next eruption, so we decided to wait. As the crowd increased, more and more people sat in the stands. Finally the eruption started… and everyone rushed forwards. Now I usually consider most Japanese to be very courteous and restrained. I also assumed that since there was amphitheater style seating, that people would realize they should sit and watch the geyser. I was wrong. There was a mad rush for the geyser (which made it a little hard for the rest of us to see). Sigh…
After this we decided to have lunch at a quaint little restaurant called “Hot Mango.” Now for most people, this would be just fine, and they could have eaten here without the ruckus that we made on the car ride over. See, in Japanese, mango sounds very similar to another word… a part of a woman’s body to be precise. And so once again proving that none of us had the maturity level of a 10 year old, we... discussed the possibly of the restaurant. However, all the maturity we didn’t have outside, was restored once we went inside. Nobody made any bad jokes, nobody laughed, not even when Steph ordered mango juice. Which was all for the best because unbeknownst to us, the proprietor could understand and speak English quite well.
From the restaurant, we headed straight to Miyazaki prefecture. Our destination was the gorges at Takachiho. This was the site I had been waiting to visit ever since I stepped off the plane in Kyushu. I had seen it on TV, and it looked like a breathtaking site. Our drive through the mountains was quite adventurous, again because Navi thought we liked the one lane torturous mountain roads as opposed to nice open highways. Eventually, we reached the gorges, and I was very impressed. Even though it was a little drizzly, the view was just as nice. Please check through some of the picture if you get a chance. I was also hoping to rent a rowboat and paddle around in the gorge itself, but the shop had just closed (it closes at 4.30, and we got there about 4.50). Next time!
We left the gorges at about 6.30ish and instead of taking Navi’s fun path, we hit a main thoroughfare, hit Route 10 running up and down the east coast of Kyushu, and blasted down to Miyazaki. In the rainy drizzle we checked in around 11 at night, and collapsed.
Day 5 – The Epic Handshake and the Epic Drive Episode 3 – May 2
Steph and the Statue
Kencho
The Guv
Kagoshima and check in
Out to the port
Shutout at the Ticket gate
Pete and the fountain
Statues, statues and more statues
My huge faith
A huge torii
A little hike
Izakaya dinner
Day 6 – Sakura Jimmy and the Chiran (not as funny as you might think) – May 3
Sakura jima
Lining up to get on board
Around the island
The buried torii and the school
Chiran gardens
The Special Attack Forces Museum
Day 7 – The Split Heard Round the World and (I’m assuming) The Epic Drive Episode 4 – May 4
8am start and a short shinkansen ride
Kumamoto and the long lines
Nice people at the Castle
Dazaifu’s main drag and the festival
The Shrine and the Pref Museum
The Line up for the Rolls
This is Hakata? Dontaku~~ (so close)
A Tearful reunion (if its tears from your sweat glands)
The assassination attempt
Dinner at the yattai
Day 8 – Homeward Bound – May 5
Flight home
Train and collapse
Current Mood: exhausted
|
|
03:47 am
[Link] |
While the cat's away...
Hey Omoikane!
Time for a normal post! Things are going pretty swimmingly! My precious is away running around Japan for the next month or so, but I'll be ok. I gots a new favorite song and favorite anime to tide me over in the meantime.
Sometimes it really annoys me how I still can get hooked on stupid midi synth anime themes... but I got hooked a bit on this song by Kotoko called Kirei na Senritsu, which I believe translates into something like "Pretty Melody" or something. The girl's voice sounds heavily synthesized, but even still, I do enjoy listening to it.
As for the anime, my friend Steve introduced me to Lucky Star, or Raki Sutaa if you like your "eigo" katakana-ized. gyeh... Basically its not a new concept anime. It uses a lot of the standard archetypes. Megane-ko, kawaii boke, bijin tsukomi, everything otaku, etc. It's very similar to Azumanga Daioh, but it is drawn in a very cutesy style. It's supposed to be about 4 HS girls and their daily lives, but it looks more like 4 elementary school girls, except for the megane-ko. Anyways, there are lots of Japanese inside jokes and pop culture references (some of which I catch and the fan-subbers don't!) Plus this series is done by Kyoto animation (Haruhi, FMP, Keroro, etc.) and so these characters appear regularly in Lucky Star, sometimes on masks, sometimes on phonecards, or sometimes as a Haruhi themed kissa. That was pretty funny watching Kotono go from her normal self to Haruhi. It was even better given that it's the same voice actress. @_@;\
My 2 favorite parts are at the end when they have a segment called "Lucky Channel" which stars a mild mannered HS guy and an insane idol. The fun starts when the idol girl changes out of her "cutesy" mode and goes into incredibly disillusioned, caustic and incredibly cynical mode. Oh, and she's an S...
My second favorite part is the ending credits. The girls sing karaoke and I am kinda frightened to find that I recognized 9/13 songs... Anyways, its fun to try to figure out what they are singing.
On the work front, speech contest practice is continuing! Shirasawa banzai! I hope we bring back the trophy this year! I'm also doing another runthrough on my kanji sheet to see how far I've progressed in my Japanese. Last time I checked, I knew 700/1000 kanji. I hope I'm up to 800 by now.
And last, tomorrow we will try to get a hold of the new JETs in our area! And so, my last year in Japan starts! Here we go!
Current Location: At home!
Current Mood:  weird
Current Music: Kotoko - Kirei na Senritsu
|
|
03:43 am
[Link] |
Day 1 Sendai and a trip down the stairs...
Number 3 is going to be crossed off my list! I’ve been keeping a little list of things I want to do while I’m in Japan. Nebuta is going to be crossed off the list!
My voyage began with my health not it the best of conditions. I’ve had this bug bite on the ball of my foot which turned into a blister, and then into huge patch of thickened skin. So basically it hurts a bit to walk and running is pretty much out of the question. So my plan was to go up to Sendai on the Sunday evening and watch the Tanabata fireworks display.
I also planned in advance to take normal rail lines up to Sendai to save on some money. So I left my house around 12 and hopped on the train at 1 from Motomiya. On most Sendai-bound trains from Motomiya, you have to transfer in Fukushima. I thought that since the timetable said the train arrived in Fukushima at 1.30 and left at 1.33 that I wouldn’t have to transfer trains. I was wrong. I listened closely to figure out what I had to do. The announcer said that we were coming in on track 2 and that the train for Sendai was leaving on track 3. So, I mentally planned my route. I had to run out of the train, up the stairs, over the overpass and down to track 3. 1 and 2 should share the same platform. 3 and 4 should share the same platform and 5 is next to the ticket counter. I ran out of the train, up the stairs… and then I heard a whistle blow from back behind me indicating that a train was about to leave. It was then that I realized my mistake. The platform layout I just described was for Koriyama, not Fukushima. In Fukushima, track 2 and 3 share the same platform. So I did a spin turn worthy of Michael Jackson and proceeded to sprint down the stairs. Now, there’s a reason Mommy always says not to run down the stairs. On the 3rd last stair, I lost my footing, and proceeded to slide down the next two stairs on the side of one of my feet. I was carrying a suitcase at the time as well. Good fun.
I did make the train, but I am pretty sure I looked pretty stupid. Instead of calmly walking a mere 10 feet across the platform, I turned it into quite a dash.
Still, undaunted by my injury, I decided to push on with my plans to visit Matsushima. I checked into the hotel in Sendai and then took the next train out to Matsushima. BTW, you use the Matsushima Kogen… or something station to sightsee. Not the station on the Tohoku-sen… So on the way out there, I met a nice fellow who was also on the JET program who was taking his family on a spin around Japan and was just heading home. It’s fun to play the stealth gaijin once in a while. They had no idea I was a foreigner. Anyways, its nice to potentially have a friend in Sendai.
So I got to Matsushima in one piece around 4ish. I walked around, had some soba and shaved ice, and then realized that my foot was really going to be a problem. Sitting seemed to make my foot get a LOT worse… and after I got up from lunch, I knew I had to do something about it. So I got a cane. But instead of getting an old man cane, I picked up a wooden sword called a “Bokuto” and I used that instead. I got some pretty strange looks doing that. As I walked past a family with a couple of elementary school aged kids, I heard one of them say “That’s not the way to use that” to his parents. ^_^;; Would have liked to be able to use the gaijin card there…
Anyways, I walked across the long bridge to an island in the bay and sat hunched on a park bench watching the sun go down over Matsushima just like an old man.
I headed back to Sendai and hopped off to the bookstore to get me study books. I found everything pretty quickly and hustled back to the station to get ready to meet Steph and her brothers. I kinda forgot about when the fireworks in Sendai were going to be… and Steph’s train got in at 8. I later found out that the fireworks started at 7.30 (when I heard them). So I guess it wouldn’t have worked anyways. Steph arrived and I met her brothers, both of whom were very easy to get along with. Then their friend arrived and we headed out for a quick dinner at a little noodle stand. Then since it was getting late at this point, Steph and I went back to the hotel and turned in early since she was exhausted from traveling around Japan, and my foot hurt like hell.
So health deterioration in one day: Extremely sore foot and foot with bug bite.
Current Location: Sendai
Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Kireina Senritsu?
|
|
12:00 am
[Link] |
Day 7 - Tokyo
Saturday was the day when we broke up into two groups with Steph and I staying in Tokyo, and Pete and Steve heading back home. Steve and Pete left around 10ish, while we stayed around util around 7pm. We checked out and left the hotel around 11ish and headed out for the Shogun’s gardens just east of Tsukiji. We took the subway and went at a very leasurely pace. We found the gardens and had a small picnic snack on the lawn. After wandering around the park for a bit, we headed to the Tsukiji fish market. Since it was about noon, most of the shops were closed, but we managed to find an authentic looking sushi restaurant. A lot of sushi places in Tsukiji look really flashy, but I wanted to find a hole in the wall place, and boy did we find one. There was a line outside what looked to be an alleyway. We got in line, and went in to find that the second floor was a very busy, bustling sushi bar. We got seated right at the counter in front of the chefs making sushi. It was really interesting watching them pulling out huge pieces of fish and making sushi and sashimi with them. Steph got chirashizushi, and I like a champ, got ebi tempura, the only thing that was cooked in that entire restaurant. Steph really liked her food, and my shrimp tempura was exquisite! The shrimp probably went from sea to plate in less than 10 hours I am guessing. After this, we headed out to Shimbashi to take the tram out to Odaiba. At this point, we were getting a bit rushed, but there wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it. We made a quick trip around Odaiba first going to Palette Town and Venus Fort, where we did a lot of just staring at expensive clothes. Thank GOD she doesn’t want expensive clothes. After this, we wandered over to the Fuji Television Building where they were having a special event of some sort that I couldn:t figure out. I dragged her around to get some stuff at the Fuji TV store and then we walked outside and saw a huge crowd gathered around. Yakkun was on the stage, and we JUST missed his performance? Her performance? ::shrugs:: Steph tried to get a picture, but just as she held up her camera, a staff guy caught her and told her to put it away. Nuts. I just realized that Steph has an odd habit of trying to take pictures in places where she shouldn’t; first the Pixar exhibit, then here, and at least one more place that I can’t remember now. Hmmmm… But we did get free ice cream bars for walking around. =D After this, we ran to the mini Statue of Liberty, watched a street performer, and then headed straight home. We ended up getting home at around 9.30 at night and promptly fell asleep. What a long, long week.
Current Location: Home sweet home
Current Mood: exhausted but happy
|
|
12:00 am
[Link] |
Day 6 - Kamakura and Tokyo
On Friday, we had another late start. I was feeling completely destroyed physically and emotionally after the day before, so everyone kinda dragged me out of the hotel at 10ish. We headed for Ueno station and then out towards Kamakura. I should have been tipped off to the fact that it was going to be a very busy day by 2 things. First, the first train was pretty crowded when it left its first stop in Tokyo. Second was the size of the line when we transferred trains in Ofuna. I had originally planned to take a train from Tokyo and then take it all the way to Kamakura, but instead, we caught a different train and had to transfer. We just missed a train going to Kamakura and so we queued up in a line already 10 deep. The next train arrive and the 10 people in front of us barely squeezed on (it was almost a “conductor shoving people in” train). Then it was showtime when the next train came, and it was packed. We crammed onboard. It was so crowded that I didn’t have to hold onto anything. I just stood in the crush of people and whenever the train braked, I was pushed into the people around me. It was very, very crowded. We got off the train at Kita Kamakura and went to Enryuji which was right outside of the station. I had completely missed this fact the first time I went, but that is the temple of the Tri-force. There are Tri-force marks everywhere on the grounds, and I took a lot of pictures. I went here last year with my dad, but I didn:t remember seeing any of those Tri-forces last time. I don’t know how I missed them. There were soooo many of them! I wanted to hit the Jodo Shinshu temple in the area, but I wasn’t able to find it, and after the day before, I wasn’t too inclined to walk around looking at very many temples. However, we had to hit the Hawk-men temple. After getting the location from my dad, we couldn’t find it after investigating on the internet, we headed there after the Zen temple. Steve and I managed to kinda convince people that it wasn:t too far of a climb. It was just a little farther than the climb we made to see a bell at Enrakuji. At least, that’s what we told them. After the 100th step, they figured out that we had lied to them. Hehehe… It was approximately 250 steps or so to the top of the hill, but it was worth it for me. I got my hawk-man pictures, and it was cool! There was a really nice breeze at the top of the hill, so it was quite nice. After that, we decided to go along a trail at the top of the hill for a while. It was a really nice hike. I forgot how nice it can be if you don’t have to worry about ticks, poison oak, and mosquitoes. The trail smelled wonderful, like a damp forest, and we were hiking in the trees most of the time. Like I said, it was wonderful, but after realizing that it might not be a loop trail, we turned back. Afterwards, we followed the crush of people around and we stopped for lunch at a soba place along the road. It was a small place, and the soba was pretty good, but it wasn’t too cheap given what we ate. After lunch, we made our way to the station to take the train out to get to the Daibutsu. The line for tickets didn’t seem to be too bad. I got in line, and then the guys yelled at me that we needed to buy Eno-something tickets, and I read on the ticket machine that I couldn’t purchase them here. We went over to those gates and my jaw dropped. There were people lined up around the block for the train out to the Daibutsu. After asking some station attendants, I was told that it would be about a 1 hour wait to get a train out, to say nothing about the amount of time it would take to actually GET to the Daibutsu. There were also taxis running around, but none were coming to the station. This meant that the line to get a taxi would end up being 30-40 minutes long. So we all decided unanimously to cancel the Daibutsu, and to head back to Tokyo. It was a pretty crowded ride back, with only 2 of us able to sit down, so Pete and I stood on the way home. 40 minutes. After walking around the entire day. Don’t get me wrong, I love having my girl around, but man… my legs were tired… After we got back to Tokyo, we split up and Steph and I went to a toy shop across the street from Ueno station while the other two went back to the hotel to rest. I bought a horde of Kitties (DAMN YOU SANRIO) and then we also headed back to the hotel. After this, we decided to venture out to Akihabara, one of my favorite places in all of Tokyo. Steve needed to pick up a CD, so we made a trip out to GAMERS. I picked up some manga which I hadn’t been planning on buying (DAMN YOU GAMERS!), one of which stars a cat who is a master of a ramen shop. The comic on the back, where the cat makes some gyoza and it’s absolutely covered in cat hair, sold me on the manga. After Gamers, it was time to go find some dinner. Since I was vetoed after suggesting a Maid café, we looked around until we saw a building which had a lot of restaurants in it. It was here that I found my new favorite restaurant in Tokyo. It was a katsu specialty restaurant with all you can eat rice, miso soup, and most importantly CABBAGE!!!!!!! This place was just like the katsu place in Nagoya. The katsu here was wonderful, and I ended up having 2 more bowls of rice and cabbage. The dressing for the cabbage was absolutely wonderful! I love yuzu dressing! After dinner, we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.
Current Location: Tokyo
Current Mood:  tired
|
|
12:00 am
[Link] |
Day 5 - Kyoto, Nara, and Tokyo
On Thursday, we decided on taking it easy, and so we got a late start out of Kyoto bound for Nara. We checked out of the hotel and ended up leaving Kyoto around 10ish. We arrived in Nara about 11ish and went straight to Todaiji. It was fairly crowded, but not as crowded as when I went with my dad last year. We walked down the main street, past the park, past the pagodas, and up to Todaiji. This year, they didn’t have a concert going on, so we were able to walk right up the main path to the Temple, something I couldn’t do last year. We ran around taking pictures, and watched children crawling through the hole in the pillar. After Todaiji, we quickly walked around to the neighboring shrines and temples before heading downtown again to get a late lunch. We got lunch at an udon place on the main road. Their special was a chest of drawers each containing a different type of udon noodle. I of course, opted instead for the zarusoba. I think. I was quite surprised by how many Chinese tourists were in this restaurant. Granted that there were a lot of tourists walking around, but almost everyone in this place was Chinese. Odd. Anyways, afterwards, we headed for the Hankyu train station because that was closer than trekking all the way back to the JR station. We managed to catch a special express line back to Kyoto which was going to take just 33 minutes, instead of the 45 for a JR express. It was crowded, but we found seats, sat down and relaxed. What we didn’t realize at that time was that the whole train had reserved seating. Oops #1. So we had to stand in between cars, and I thought, well that’s not so bad. It’s only a 33 minute ride. Easy as pie. Then came oops #2. Because it’s a special express train, we needed special express tickets, which we hadn’t bought at the automated ticket machines. Then we had to pay an additional 500 yen… oopsie. Maybe next time the walk to the JR station might be worth it… Anyways, for some reason I think that was really the last straw for me after a couple days of just not getting enough sleep and walking around too much, so I went into a little angry cocoon after that and kinda sat by myself for the next several hours. We returned to Kyoto, got our bags, and then headed out for Tokyo. The 3 hour train ride did me quite a bit of good. First, it made everybody sit next to me, which did help my spirits a bit (I may have been in a bad mood, but I tried not to spread it). Second, everyone had to be fairly quiet on the train, so I didn’t feel to out of place as I sat there quietly sulking. By the time we finally reached Tokyo, I was feeling much better. We reached the hotel, and everyone agreed that we wouldn’t be doing anything that night except getting dinner at McDonalds and going to bed. McDonalds was a rather interesting experience. It took Stephanie and me a little time to get our food, so in the mean time, Steve and Pete graciously offered to go and find seats on the second floor. When we got to the second floor, Steve was sitting down looking kinda nervous and Pete was standing by the stairs and said that there weren’t any seats unless we wanted to sit next to Crazy Guy near Steve who was talking to himself and hitting the window with his fists occasionally. So after this day, I wasn’t too inclined to humor Crazy, Smashy, Fisty guy, so we waited for a seat to open up, which it did after a couple minutes. I had a MegaMac, or what I would like to call “Heart attack in a bun.” Oh it was sooo good, and it probably cut 2 years off my life. 4 patties, 3 buns, but there was lettuce and other stuff in there so it didn’t turn into a Jack in the Box Triple Cheeseburger, which in my book is beyond nasty. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and we decided to look up where to go on Friday. We wanted to see a temple which had a bunch of hawk-men. We couldn’t remember what the temple was called, so we decided to use the free internet access in our rooms to find out where this place was. We booted up the computer, and started searching. We quickly realized how hard it was going to be to find this temple. We first searched “hawk-men” and “Kamakura.” This yielded a bunch of GI Joe articles about a guy named Kamakura. We then proceeded to detour from our search to find out more about this intriguing character. We searched Wikipedia and found that the page dedicated to Kamakura didn’t even have a good picture of him on the site. It was a picture of his legs with everything above that covered by someone else’s body. It was supposed to be a picture of him, and the best image that people could come up with was a picture of him in the background and practically invisible, save his yellow pants. We were all having a good laugh about this, when the computer shut down and asked for payment. What we didn’t realize was that it was only 30 minutes of free access if you used their computer. Oops. So we didn’t find the name of that temple. All because of stupid Kamakura and GI Joe. Boy did we feel a bit stupid after that. STEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVEEEEEEE!
Current Location: Tokyo
Current Mood:  grumpy
|
|
12:00 am
[Link] |
Day 4 - Kyoto
On Wednesday, I planned on attending a 6AM service at the Honganji, and this proved to be a bit of a trial. It was pretty easy for me to get up at 5.30 for the service, though it was much more difficult for Steph it appeared, and pictures throughout the day proved it. Pete, Paul, Steph and I headed out for the service around 5.45 which got us to the gates just as the kansho was being rung. We sat in the back and listened to the short and long chants, as well as a short dharma talk in Japanese which I only caught a bit of. It was nice to sit in the Temple and just relax for an hour. Following the service, we went and got some food at Natural Lawson’s across the street from the Honganji. This Lawson’s wasn’t your average Lawsons. It was what I believe would be the definition of pretentiousness. It was a combini trying to be a classy co-op super market/ Trader Joe’s. The pan there wasn’t too good either. A normal 7-11 is definitely the way to go. We finished munching at about 7.45 and headed out to Ryoanji. It opened at 8am, and it was nice to go and visit it when there weren’t too many people. From pictures I had seen, I was expecting a massive rock garden spreading out over a couple halls, so you can imagine my surprise when I looked and saw it was smaller than my backyard. Still, it was very nice and peaceful, what with the wind gently blowing and the birds singing in the trees. After this, we walked to Kinkakuji to meet up with Steve, who decided to sleep in. Being a little past 10 AM, Kikakuji was now packed with a combination of tourists and students on field trips. The kids were incredibly cute and quite outgoing, shouting “Good morning” and “Hello” to the hakujin members of our little tour group. Steph and I were summarily ignored except for the occasional bizarre stare as we conversed in English. I was pretty impressed with the level of English displayed by these 6th graders (I think). The ones who had enough courage were able to shout, “Hello, my name is xxx! Nice to meet you!” And some of them were able to answer where they were from. After this, I noticed that Pete and Steph were buying omiyage, so like a pro, I decided to buy all my omiyage here. The result was a 9000 yen bag full of stuff that was quite heavy. Out of pity, the group allowed me to go back to the hotel so I could drop all this crap off. After we went back to the hotel, we headed out to get some lunch. We decided on a nice looking pasta place in Kyoto station. It was a really, really tasty pasta place, which served large and extra large portions for the same price as medium plates. I had a huge extra large plate of some incredibly tasty penne. I had my heart set on lasagna, but they dashed my hopes, as it was already sold out… =(. It was also at this restaurant that I got possibly my best picture of Engrish on this trip. You’ll have to check it out at some point. It involved fried food and an alternate word for “Chicken.” After lunch, we headed out once again by bus to Kiyomizudera. It was here that Paul had to leave for home, so we bade farewell to him and headed on up to the temple. I was really excited to head out there, mainly because I had never been there before, and I’d heard that it was one of the most famous places in Kyoto. Plus, having a little cameo in Love Hina kinda made me want to go there too. Because it was Golden Week, it was rather crowded, which I liked, but other people possibly not so much. We took tons of pictures, and then went to get some of the water! Pete, Steve and Steph went first while I played cameraman. None of us knew that each of the 3 streams of water cascading over the edge of the fountain, had a different power or something. I’m still not completely convinced of what was what, but I think Pete took love, Steve took long life, and Steph took… money? I can’t remember. Well, when it came to be my turn, I asked some staff at the temple if the streams had different meanings. When they told me know, I just took water fro any old one, and it apparently turned out to be love. So apparently Pete and I are linked now forever. ::sigh:: I also walked off with my water, which was… not what I was supposed to do? Beats me. It’s not my Buddhist temple. After this, we strolled back through Gion which was really nice, and we saw a fake maiko! I thought she looked authentic, but according to Steve and Pete, the Japanese people around us were casting doubt on her because she didn’t seem to be walking very naturally in her dress and shoes. After a little stroll through Gion, we stopped at a Starbucks to just sit, relax and people watch out on the sidewalk. After this, all of us took a cab back to the hotel (after the driver took us to the wrong hotel… I said Rehga Royal NOT PARK HILTON). Then we all went back to our rooms and collapsed. I napped for about an hour and then headed out by myself to explore the bowels of Kyoto station. I forgot how much I like just kinda wandering around by myself. It’s a very… free feeling. I went looking for my Ecorce cookies, but to my utter surprise, they weren’t selling them downstairs! So instead I got some sandwich fixings and cake for Stephanie (who had been rather grumpy all day long due to a lack of sleep) and then met up with Pete and Steve. We went back to the hotel, rested for a bit more, dragged Stephanie out of bed, and headed out to dinner. We found a small Yakitori place off the station and chowed down. It was probably my most enjoyable dinner at a yakitori place because we were pretty much buying whatever we wanted, instead of having to eat a course, or worry about ordering too much and running up a bill. We ate quite well for about 2500 a person, which might be a bit pricey for yakitori, but it was pretty tasty! After that, we went back to the hotel and collapsed.
Current Location: Kyoto
Current Mood: sleepy
Tags: golden week kyoto
|
|
12:00 am
[Link] |
Day 3 - Osaka and Kyoto
So hey! It’s Tuesday, and the first thing that wakes me up are those damn tourists rapping on our door at 7 trying to wake us up for breakfast. I hate it when people can’t remember where their friends are staying, and end up waking me up. Anyway, we got some breakfast and then decided to check out of the hotel and head out to Osaka castle around 9.30ish. Tuesday was our only rainy day of the entire trip, but it still made things a little difficult. However, I was very happy to find that there was no wind. After breakfast, we headed out to Osaka Castle. Being somewhat of a castle fan, I took as many pictures as I could around the castle, but without bright sunlight, it becomes rather difficult to get those really clean, crisp shots. Osaka Castle was a little bit of a disappointment to me. It was certainly a very stately castle, but the inside was more a standard history museum than a living museum like Himeji-jo was. Still, there were some nice displays. I think our favorite was a description of a battle saying, “So and so general snuck up on Tokugawa Ieyasu and gave him a scare.” I can only assume that the actual battle was a lot scarier than a guy in samurai armor going up to Ieyasu and shouting “Boo!” We also took the opportunity to cheer whenever the pro-Tokugawa forces were mentioned in any of the exhibits since Date Masamune fought alongside Ieyasu’s forces in the assault on Osaka Castle. Peter proudly said, “We’re at the right hand of his army. See, he trusted us the most!” The castle also hosted a very nice temporary exhibit containing armor and weaponry of the era including some very impressive suits of armor, and some very ridiculous helms, some of which looked like the wearer wouldn’t be able to hold his head up straight (Think 4 feet horns of iron on a helmet made of iron). On our way out, we managed to take a wonderful picture of a poster that the staff had obviously not run by a native English speaker. It boldly read, “Taste a little samurai warrior.” I ain’t no cannibal… But speaking of lunch, after we finished walking around Osaka Castle, we went to lunch at an Indian place near the hotel, where we got some tasty curry. We also spent a good deal of time contemplating the Bollywood music videos that seem to play wherever we eat Indian food. After lunch, we hurriedly left for Kyoto and checked into the hotel. By the time we had rested and decided to head out, it was evening. The rain had let up, so I intelligently decided not to bring my umbrella or pack a sweatshirt. And I’m an idiot. It never got really cold, but I wasn’t too comfortable that night. So, we headed out to Gion. We had fish and chips (or chicken and chips for me) at an English pub and played some darts. Paul is entirely too good at darts, and it was a very good thing that he was drinking so he wasn’t too insanely good. We played a game, the name of which I forgot, in which everyone throws one dart to determine their “number.” Your immediate aim is to accumulate a score of 3 points on your number by hitting it. Once you do this, you can begin to “kill” other people by hitting their numbers, which lowers their scores. Once you reduce another person to 0, they are “dead” and out of the game. Long story short, Paul got his score and killed Pete and me before we got to throw any darts. After finishing up at the pub, we went wandering though Gion a bit (because it was raining), and then went back to the hotel, so we could get ready for the next day.
Current Location: Kyoto
Current Mood: tired
Tags: golden week kyoto
|
[<< Previous 10 entries] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
roguenull's journal