Nikko Trip

Yesterday morning I get my ass up and packed. We were going on an overnight trip to Nikko. They warned us that it might get a little cold. If only I had known…

Once again, the train ride was quite ridiculous, though because I was on the Yamanote line slightly later, it wasn’t as sardine-packed. I guess 8 o clock is the time everyone’s supposed to be at work. Hope none of my classes start close to that time.

The bus ride to Nikko was pretty uneventful. I decided that sleep would be pretty good, and for the first half of the ride, it worked. And then the girl in front of me started talking about anime.

Not just talking about Anime. I mean, talking about it. Describing every little scene in episode 270 of some show. Like a Japanese wannabe trekkie or something. And then she described the ending of the series, and how the fans were pissed, so they made a movie… I wish I had a gun at that point. Or a working iPod. I had neither.

On the second part of the ride (after a short break), I sat with Francisco from El Salvador, which alleviated the pain of more anime talk from up front.

Nikko was an interesting place. We visited two different shrines, and a temple. Our tour guide explained the difference on the bus. Buddhism and Shintoism. Though talking to Francisco I forgot which one was which.

The shrines were gorgeous, though I though there were too many people around. So I decided that it would be better for me to wake up early in the morning and come up myself. After walking around the shrines and temples, we were taken to our Ryokan, our traditional Japanese hotel for the night.

The ryokan was interesting, and we’d finally sleep on futons. No not foldable college futons. Real futons. And there was an ofuro as well. A hot tub with spring water. This was a geo-thermal zone after all. The tatami mats in the rooms looked really snazzy too. Some of the guys dressed up in yukata, the male kimonos and pranced around the hotel.

Dinner was funky as well. We walked into the banquet hall and there were over 50 individual tables for all of us. And on the table were a bunch of plates. They had raw beef too. Surely we weren’t going to eat raw beef. That was true.

The ladies came around with lighters and lit underneath the plate. The beef was cooked right in front of us. So we could make sure it was up to our standards. That was phenomenal. I enjoyed every bit of it. And then I also threw some of my raw fish on there to cook it up a little bit. My fire ran out soon and I was stranded with some sakana on my plate.

But no fear, the sushi monsters came by and ate it.

Most of the guys went to jump into the hot spring tubs. But I decided that I would chill a little bit and go to bed. I’d be getting up at 5 am the next day. Needed to be ready.

I woke up at around 6 actually. Didn’t feel the need to get up at daybreak. Sleep was precious to me. Even at 6 it was really damn cold. I walked down to this bridge, and then walked back up the hill to the shrines. Definitely a lot more zen with nobody around. Though I did expect there to be some sort of fog in the morning. It was too cold though. After a while, small flakes of something started to fall out of the sky. I thought some of the trees might be losing some flowers or something (it is spring). I was wrong.

The drive up the mountain was pretty cool, except for the few flakes turning into a massive blizzard. We went up 44 hairpin turns. Thought my stomach wouldn’t agree. At the top of the mountain we stopped and went outside. The wind howled as the blizzard continued. The temples looked really nice with the red paint and the snow covering everything. But it was still coming down in droves.

We went on to the first waterfall we were supposed to visit, and the snow kept coming. I slipped down some steps. But it was worth it. The views were wonderful. We went to another waterfall as well, which was about 300 feet high. More than that actually because we had to go down an elevator for over a 100 meters. At that point most everybody was tired. It was cold, VERY WINDY, and grey. Icky for the most part.

We piled back onto the bus and were hit with Tokyo’s reality within 2 hours. Traffic and congestion. And urban sprawl. Oh Tokyo.

On a lesser note, on the way home I walked onto one of the trains and took a spot out in the open by the door. About two stops down, the train had more people on there, but a lot of space was available. The third stop, three people get on the train including a lady, and out of the entire car, she chooses to stand right in front of me, an inch away. Talk about invading personal space on an empty train. Crazy Japanese.

Photos are coming…..

Spelunking + Scavenging

So I woke up early today once again. It’s what happens when you hit bed at like 8 am.

I rode a bike to the station and parked it at the local bike parking garage. It was sweet.

The train ride was initially the boring one that I expected. But then I got to a station called Ueno, and switched to the famous Yamanote line.

And I guess half of fucking Tokyo wanted to join in the ride. Because there were thousands of people at that station. Not hundreds. Thousands. And hundreds of people were getting on each train. The station actually employs people to pack passengers into the train. When a wave comes in and they need to close the door, this man pushes people in until they can be closed. I have never felt so sardine-like as the packer shoved 10 more people into the train than there should’ve been.

All those people are getting on that train


What a sardine looks like inside the can.


Slightly squashed, I got to campus and was put in a group for the scavenger hunt.

Campus


Scavenger hunt = free all day train ticket for Tokyo + the biggest fucking playground ever

So we wandered around to the Imperial Palace, to Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku. Admired the cherry blossoms, admired the view from TMG (Tokyo Metropolitan Government) buildings, ate some crepes, stood in awe and watched thousands of people mill around Shibuya (don’t these Japanese people work or anything?)

Cherry Blossoms around campus



Shibuya milling


After the hunt was over, some cats and I wandered over to Akihabara electric town. Steph, using her wonderful mastery of the Japanese language arranged for us to buy cellphones with plans and everything. We even chose sexy phones with English language menus. And then came the most important part. Paying 3 yen for the cellphones. I decided to be nice and treat Ruben and Steph to cellphones. Yes, I bought my friends phones. I’m nice aren’t I?

The ride home was slightly less squashed. Being tired from the day spelunking around Tokyo didn’t help either. But what was coming up was worse.

On my bike-ride through the near pitch-black streets of my town I ran into 3 policemen who asked me for my passport. Being the smartass that I am I left my passport at the house. So I showed them my drivers license and ID and started talking in Japanese. Maybe they liked the fact that this gaikokujin knew how to put two sentences in Japanese together, or they liked me, but I got off with a warning: I need to turn on my front light when riding at night.

Tomorrow we set off to Nikko for the overnight trip. As a certain Evan Miller would say, it will be sugoi.

I leave you with an interesting image.



Yes that's a bicycle. And yes, that's an ashtray attached to the bicycle. Crazy Japanese.

Day Two or so

So I woke up today early again. I had hit the sack at like 9 pm, which for those who know me, is an unbelievably early hour for me to be sleeping. I didn’t want to get out of my room until later, so I organized some of my music and read my camera manual for the first time ever (should have done it right when I got it, let me tell you that).

I went downstairs to take a shower. The water pressure is amazing, like a massage machine. After the nice, hot shower I went back upstairs to change, came down and breakfast was ready again. This time Sakurako made it for me. It was a really nice gesture. I will start making my own breakfast pretty soon. Promise.

I decided to finish one of my books, and after that ventured out into the little town to find a supermarket. I desperately needed some snacks, and desperately needed some ham and cheese for breakfast. The walk through the town was nice, but I am going to buy a bicycle, because it’s a lot easier that way. The supermarket’s by the train station and I took about 20 minutes to get there. On a bike it should be something like 5. That’s 15 extra minutes of sleep time there.

On the way I saw some cool things:

The House

And you complain about tight parking?

Some cool tree...

Pimp looking house.

The supermarket was fun. A lot of people were really surprised to see a white guy shopping. But a man’s gotta eat.

This looked interesting...



After throwing some necessary items into the basket, including snacks for tomorrow and rice-cakes, I decided that it was about time that I test the most important thing in the world; the drinking age. So I walk over to the drinks and throw a beer into my basket. For shits and giggles I took the smallest one they had. 135 ml. Yeah. 4.5 oz of beer in a can. That’s like 2 shots of beer. Who the fuck drinks 2 shots of beer.

Smallest fucking beer in the world.



But the plan worked and now I know that despite the drinking age being 20, nobody really gives a shit. Yay for that.

Can’t wait to meet up with the cats from school tomorrow. See how much more in common I have with some of them.

I'll leave you with more images of japanese efficiency.

Arrival + First Few Days

Started this blog as a way to keep track of what goes on in Japan. Sorry it’s long. It’s for those of you who are interested. If you’re not. Fuck off. I’ll try to add something everyday or so. Internet’s all over the place.




Japan’s not bad, I guess. It’s a little chilly, like 50-60, but it’s all good I have my sweaters and whatever to keep my warm. The bus-ride to the hotel from the airport was an hour long. Sucked ass if you ask me. I had to take a taxi ride from one hotel to another. Thank goodness I still know some Japanese. The driver spoke no English. In fact, half the people around here speak little or no English. My hosts do though :).

I stayed in a tiny ass hotel room for the night. Because of the jetlag I couldn’t sleep all night. I was also anxious to meet the other people. In the morning we went to orientation at the university. Doesn’t look too bad and it’s a block down from one of the shopping districts. Dunno what I’d be shopping for though. Some nice little food places around here. There’s also an Indo restaurant right down the street. Hell yeah I’m gonna go in and scare the shit out of the Indonesians who work there.





View from the Hotel.

I spent the afternoon chilling with this dude from Grinnell. He’s from Des Moines. Iowa pride. Had a connection right away. Also chilled with some guys from Minnesota. We got a little Midwest club going here.

Then we met our families.

The daughter in my host family came to greet me. It was pretty hardcore. She speaks very little English. But we communicated for a little bit. Went to the train station to get on the trains. Switched trains once, then one more time. Turns out I live about an hour away BY TRAIN from the university. Goodbye sleeping in. I could sleep on the train like ¾ of the people do. But I’m scared I’ll miss the station. I have 2 train changes along the way. Actually what I am thinking about doing is once I start school, to leave early (beat the rush hour) and hang out in the computer lab to come online. We still can’t use the labs because we don’t have IDs.

The train ride was a smack in the face from reality. For almost the whole hour you look outside and there’s buildings as far as you can see. It’s like the horizon packed up and left. I’ll make a video someday and post it. And at every station there are hundreds of people milling around. Downtown it’s even worse. And I can’t wait to experience rush hour (yeah right).

Anyway after the train ride, I got to the station and the host mom picked me up in the car. We get home to this nice little house. Turns out they have a golden retriever. It’s pretty cute. Its name is Tora. So after I met the dog and was almost humped, I actually went inside. After a small tour they showed me my room. It’s on the 2nd floor. I got the whole 2nd floor to myself. Not that there’s anything special up here, but it’s pretty cool. So I had a glass of water and passed out.


My room.

So yesterday morning I got up at 7 am. Unpacked my hand luggage. Chilled. Listened to music. Then I went downstairs to check whats going on. There’s nobody here. No clue where everyone is. But my suitcases were here. So I dragged those mofos upstairs and unpacked them. Organized myself really well surprisingly. There’s a lot that I can do when I have nothing else to do.

So it’s 11 am on Saturday and I don’t really have too much to do. I might read some books. If I find out where the hell the family is I might go and explore the little town that I’m in. See where all the convenience stores are, where the beer vending machines are. You know, that kinda stuff.

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It’s like 1 pm now. Talked to the dad. He made me breakfast which was cool. Well the mom’s somewhere and the dad went to walk the dog. So I’m chilling with the kids. Fumio is 15 and he loves video games. Sakurako is 16 and she’s the one who picked me up. So we’ve been playing winning eleven most of the morning. Wow. I am gonna fit in with this family. Waking up at noon on weekends. Winning Eleven. I’m gonna go to the electronics district to get something for my PS2, maybe a used TV for my room. I’ll see how much it costs. I’ll be getting a cellphone sometime in the next 2 weeks as well. Cellphones here are beyond sexy. They have TV and shit in them. And I get to keep mine too.

I went to try and get one today actually. Apparently there’s 50% discounts for college students, but I don’t have my college ID card yet. And I lost the document that shows I’m a college student. Wonderful. You can apply the discount later. But hell if my Japanese is good enough to ask that. I might try again in another district in town over the next few days.

Dinner was good. The father cooked up a storm for like 3 hours. Have to say that my mouth watered for the whole 3 hours. He made amazing chicken karage, fried chicken and chicken with cashews which rocked. There were also Chinese dumplings, which I didn’t like and a plate of the most random seafood, which I didn’t even touch. I’m not ready yet to try octopus and all that other crap. But I will eventually. Liking sushi is my goal at the end of this trip.

Passed out again at like 8 pm. At least I’m slowly getting adjusted. And I’m waking up at like 6-7, which’ll be the case most of the semester (Lord help me!).