The Final Day.

Well today was the last day of my trip. It started around 8:00 when we were called to breakfast on the second floor. Here we could see some of the other guests in the common eating room. There was a 30-something man to my left, four little old ladies to the right of us, a girl in her PJ's and her mother just beyond them and a Japanese girl with her white boyfriend, both dressed in yukata, across and to the right. Breakfast was a bit more edible than dinner. I had miso soup, rice, and green tea.

This was taken a bit before the seating arrangement described above.

Random note, tartan skirts in a school uniform is just about the most ingenious idea of all time. Also, During my stay in Japan, I've seen many couples, young and old, formal and casual, and what have you. Whenever I do see them though, I think to myself what it would be like if I was a Japanese person living in Japan. It seems that most Japanese will date and eventually marry another a Japanese, as there are few other options really. However in the USA, we have all kinds of different people who speak a lot of different languages. And while I'm not saying the Japanese are all alike in every way (which they aren't of course; they're all very unique actually), its just interesting to think that they will more likely than not always end up with someone who speaks only their one language and is likely another full Japanese person. I'm not sure if I can really articulate the thought that so frequently came to mind during my stay.

So after checkout and all that, we found our way to the Haruka Limited Express, a train that goes directly into Kansai International Airport (Osaka). Before boarding, I noticed the seats automatically turn around entirely to face the opposite side of the train when ready to leave for the airport. Lucky for me, my seat was one of two in our car that didn't have another right next to it, so I had extra space. As we headed for the airport, a shinkansen passed in the distance on a parallel track. It was interesting to see one move at top speed from the outside, as I had only seen it move from within before. Traveling in between major city hubs is nice because things are much simpler. There are houses in sight, and next to the track for that matter, for pretty much the entire duration of the train ride. As we traveled on, I could see a bike on the riverbank with a man sitting near, fishing alone. Just past that was a dirt lot with a bunch of old men playing something with long poles. I suppose it could have been shuffleboard, or something similar.

A bit of Japanese graphic design for a Mr. Marco Lucadano (This was on the train).

I'll also mention that I didn't see the slightest bit of xenophobia during my trip. I occasionally read articles where some Japanese are rude to gaijin (foreigners) or altogether ban them from establishments and so on. In fact, some were interested in me without my special shirt to catch their attention. If you recall back in "Akihabara Electric Town and Yuya-san" in the last substantial paragraph, I mention that some school girls in uniform looked over at me smiling, and then waved.

So eventually we arrive at KIX (the airport) with approximately 7 hours to kill until our flight. By now I was long already out of money, so Okaasan graciously offered me 20 USD, which I traded for yen. Afterward I bought a girly teenage fashion magazine titled, "Popteen." I must say I enjoy Japanese fashion magazines very much. Around 1:00 we searched for food on the second and third floor and I discovered one such establishment that sold "Ried Potatoes." After lunch I had a Japanese sweet crepe, which I was already familiar with before leaving the states, but nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed as if it were a brand new experience entirely. After killing even more time and getting through baggage, security, and outgoing immigration, we arrived at a dead end where we would then need to take a brief monorail ride to our gate. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Oh and for whatever reason we were upgraded to economy plus (5 inches of extra space and our own screen with controls for choosing which movie we want to watch) and it was quite nice.

Sweet potato flavored ice cream?

Is this really such a frequent problem that a sign needs to be put up?

On the plane I watched the movie Horrible Bosses twice. I remember seeing the commercials for it around its theater date and wanting to go see it, but I never got around to it. If you know me well, you know I am quite critical of movies and very rarely actually want to go out and see them unless I know beforehand that I would enjoy them. That aside though, it was consistently hilarious from beginning to end and needless to say I enjoyed it. There was also an episode of some science channel show narrated by Morgan Freeman about black holes that was really interesting, but I won't get into that. When we got home, Sake-chan was extremely happy to see me, and I her. She's been very vocal all day and from the sound of her voice I can tell she missed me lots.

So anyway, I'm sure there's more to say about each part of my trip, but I'm done for now at least. Ask me anything you want, specific or otherwise, in person or on Facebook if you'd like. I remember lots of little details that I didn't include in the blog for various reasons. I also have hundreds more pictures (and some videos I may upload soon).

So until next time,
Daniel

Kyoto, The Old Capital

Apologies for not posting yesterday (11.13). An internet connection was not available to me, or at least not in a convenient way. So this post will be about yesterday, Sunday the 13th.

We checked out of the New Osaka Hotel and headed for the station. In the hotel, I noticed the escalator was going the opposite direction than the night prior. I guess it changes depending on whether its check in or check out time. At the station, the delicious scent of belgian waffles struck my nose so I bought what I guess you would call a belgian waffle cream sandwich. It had strawberry cream between two rectangular belgian waffle slices. Needless to say it was very delicious. Ever since departing Tokyo, getting around and finding the right train has been more difficult. After stumbling around for awhile, I finally found the shinkansen we were to board.

The ride was only about 15 minutes to Kyoto from Shin-Osaka Station. We found our ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) and dropped off our bags to go explore until check in time. We took the subway to a station where we transferred to another subway to arrive near the Gion District. Here we browsed just about every shopping street in sight at the request of Okaasan. We ate lunch in a little western style cafe and I had fried chicken and a melon soda. The last melon soda I had was in Tokyo, and it came from a tap. It is quite possibly the most delicious soda I've ever had.

Ryokan Tomiya, crammed along side the rest of the buildings across from the station.

Our room in the ryokan. Not super spacious, but still nice.

A shopping street in the Gion District. Also, a perfect example of how cars will take any street,

メロンソーダ! (Melon Soda!)

I'm glad to be leaving soon, as there is not much for me outside of Tokyo. Osaka was okay, but was harder to navigate (surprisingly). I definitely want to return to Tokyo to study as soon as possible. I would make a great Tokyoite. Maybe one day I'll be an expat, even.

A few random notes: I noticed nearly everywhere in Japan, cars typically aren't off limits. They'll go down the narrowest streets while people scurry to the edges to get out of the way. Also, vending machines and convenience stores are in incredible abundance. On nearly every corner and in between you'll find one of each. I'm convinced that AKB48 is the most popular musical group in Japan. I've seen posters, CDs, magazines, books, merchandise stores, cafes, and more with their faces and logos plastered all over. I've honestly never looked much into them; perhaps I'm missing out on something? In Japan, everyone waits at the crosswalk for the light to change no matter how short and how few of cars are around. It could be a 5 foot long crosswalk with no cars around and no one would cross it until the green light comes about. Apparently, according to my made up stats, 85% of Japanese would rather funnel into and take the escalator than walk up the stairs. This is a real pain when you have large luggage and all these people with perfectly working legs and NO luggage are crowding the lift. I'm still amazed at the sheer amount of beautiful girls here. Even older women, upwards of 35, look stunningly gorgeous. Perhaps I just don't pay attention in America, but everyone here seems 10 times more fashionable and stylish here. I enjoy myself here so much, you'd think I was born into the wrong race, country, family, what have you.

Moving along, I finally found the tea I was looking for. I bought quite the large package of hojicha in fact, and it was in a shopping center in the Kyoto Tower Hotel. Next to the station outside of the Kyoto Granvia Hotel, was some kind of traditional dancing festival or sorts. It was done entirely by students, and it was all very interesting. I later translated the cover of the program and found out its called, "Yosakoi."

Dinner at the ryokan was interesting, to say the least. 3 or 4 different people brought it into our room at a time, dish after dish. It all looked amazing, but most of it was too odd for me to eat. We decided to sneak what we didn't want to eat out in a plastic bag, so as to not seem rude that we wouldn't touch a lot of it. Okaasan and Obasan ate a lot more of it than I did though, so don't write them off entirely.

Dinner, served in our room.

We went out shopping to kill time until the beds would be made and the food cleared from our room. On the way back, I saw my first gyaru girl (look it up). I was surprised I didn't see any in Harajuku, Tokyo actually. We also explored JR Kyoto Station, which to say the least is amazing.

Kyoto Station from the first floor. There's a long set of escalators on the right that lead up to the following picture.

The view from the top of the station, called Sky Garden.

The futons laid out for sleepy-time.

Pictures to come soon, and another post about our departure day. Maybe within a few hours.

Until then,
Daniel

This vending machine actually heats the food in front of you in a microwave of sorts.

Amerikamura & Osaka Castle

Yo!

So today is the 12th of November, a Saturday. I decided we should see Osaka today so I took us to the station to try and navigate our way to Amerikamura (America Village, much like a Chinatown in the USA). It was confusing at first to simply find the Midosuji line (subway) but eventually we found it and proceeded to Shinsaibashi Station. Once we arrived though, we stumbled around for awhile longer until we actually found Amerikamura. In some of the shops, they sold iconic American clothes like old football jackets, camo jackets, clothes with Mickey Mouse on them, and even a what looked like a variation of the screaming hand logo local to Santa Cruz.

Its interesting to see the fashions they chose from American culture to sell.

There was a big shopping center complex called Big Step in Amerikamura, but it wasn't open until 11:00, so we went to Starbucks and I bought what I think may be my first ever drink from a Starbucks; a mango frappuccino blended cream. おいしい！ It was delicious. So after the complex opened, we browsed the stores. One store in particular was rather fun for me. It was a kera (lolita-esque fashion magazine) style fashion store, and it was playing Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's CD. I sung along happily while looking at the extremely trendy clothes. If I had a girlfriend, I would buy her lots of stuff from Japanese fashion stores and dress her up to my liking, haha.

Have you ever seen a curved escalator? I haven't.

Be warned future lover of mine, you will look like this. Maybe.

Afterward, we ended up in shinsaibashi-suji shopping center. Its a long row of shops along one of the main streets. After more stumbling we finally found the station again and proceeded to Tenmabashi Station via the Keihen line. From here we stumbled around even more to find Osaka Castle. In Osaka Castle Park, we found a wild cat walking around by the bushes and eventually it walked over towards two more cats resting under a bush. Near here was an older woman painting a gorgeous painting of Osaka Castle in the distance. And just beyond that was a group of 20-somethings practicing some kind of hip hop dance to Hatsune Miku. They were even in sync with each other. After getting closer to Osaka Castle, we opted to not go inside and proceed back to the station to have lunch. We had bento boxes with four different kinds of Yakitori, rice with some weird spice on it, miso soup, and a small salad of sorts. This was the first meal I didn't fully enjoy. Some of the yakitori was good, and I ate around the spice on the rice and had some miso soup, but as all together it wasn't my ideal meal.

Osaka Castle from across the moat.

I hope when I'm her age I'll have enough free time to do stuff like this.

My Neko friend.

We headed back to Shin-Osaka Station after transferring at Yodoyabashi Station and reserved our seats for tomorrow's trip to Kyoto via shinkansen. Now we're back at the hotel relaxing until dinner. We aren't going anywhere else tonight, so I think I'll loiter around the station trying to converse with school girls. You know, chasing skirts and what not?

Until next time,
Daniel

Shin Osaka

Hiya,

In the morning after waking up today (11.11), we headed down to the 2nd floor for breakfast. It was a mixed Japanese/American buffet with a pretty good selection. I had a few orange and pineapple slices, a croissant, toast with blueberry jam, Japanese rice, and mango juice. It was very delicious, and by far the best breakfast I've ever had in a hotel.

The Japanese clearly understand my intense love of all things Mango.

Afterward, we headed to the station to make our way to the Peace Memorial Park. I have to admit, navigating around Hiroshima has been doubly difficult than in Tokyo. We eventually managed to make our way to the park via streetcar (tram). We first arrived at the A-Bomb Dome, a building that partially survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. It was truly amazing to see this building in ruins but still standing before us. We made our way further into the park afterward, stopping at the Children's Peace Monument. Here stood the statue of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who died of leukemia after suffering through the radiation after the bomb fell. She is depicted holding a paper crane above her because she folded over 1000 paper cranes while in the hospital (a Japanese tale says if you fold 1000 paper cranes, the Gods will grant you a wish). Unfortunately, her condition progressively worsened and she died at the age of 12.

The Streetcar that took us to Genbaku Dome.

The dome itself.

One of many artworks put together using the paper cranes made by children around the world.

Beyond the statue was the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall and beyond that the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Inside the hall was a touch screen system where one could search for the profiles of those that had fallen to the bomb or the radiation thereafter. Some 18,000 names are registered and some even included pictures. Inside the museum one could find a number of surviving items that just filled your soul with feelings of melancholy. One display case contained the charred skin and nails of a Jr. High Student. Elsewhere in the museum were tattered clothes, sections of walls and metal structures that suffered damage from the bomb, and other partially intact items. Another display case contained a human shadow etched in stone. Towards the end of the museum route, I found models of people with their clothes charred and their skin melting away. The absolute horrors of nuclear weaponry have never felt so real before today. 

A model depicting the city before the bombing.

And one depicting  the city after the bombing.

Models of the victims of the atomic bomb.

After arriving back at the hotel, we checked out and proceeded to the station. Our original tickets to Shin-Osaka via shinkansen were for 14:15 (2:15PM) but we had to check out at 12:00, so we changed to an earlier train. I did the math while on the train and according to my calculations, in 15 seconds the particular shinkansen we were on travels the distance of 13 football fields. 


Upon arriving in Osaka, we made our way to the hotel, the New Osaka Hotel, and checked in. It's nice here, but there's even less written English around the premises, and even less spoken English by the staff. We decided just to eat dinner and then spend the rest of the day at the hotel since it was slightly raining and starting to get dark. Tomorrow I think we will go to Amerikamura, an "Americatown" of sorts, much like a Chinatown. Maybe we'll go to Osaka Castle too. I've yet to decide on the itinerary. Then the next two days we will likely spend in Kyoto. 

A most delicious dinner consisting of kake udon, Japanese rice, and deep fried chicken for a mere 590 JPY.

Until next time,
Daniel

Hiroshima

Yo. So today we checked out of the Shinagawa Prince Hotel and headed for the station. We took the shinkansen (bullet train) to Shin-Osaka Station and changed trains to get to Hiroshima Station. For breakfast, Okaasan brought me a kind of pull apart bread and mango jam. To our surprise, the bread was hollow and filled with what I think was cottage cheese, which I don't particularly care for. Buying food in Japan is sometimes a gamble when you can't read Japanese. The jam was absolutely delicious though. As a rule of thumb, I love just about anything mango; its my favorite fruit. I bought another hot lemonade from the vending machine at the station.

A thought: In Japan there is a smoking and non-smoking section for just about everything from restaurants to bullet trains. In actuality though, you're offered smoke, or less smoke, because even if you aren't in the smoking section, it always wafts your way eventually. Also, for seemingly no reason, the English voice for the shinkansen is British, while every other automated English voice I've heard is American.

Our hotel's lobby. It's actually nicer than the last hotel.

So we finally arrived in Hiroshima after about 5 or 6 hours of travel, I think. We checked in and offloaded our stuff in our room before heading back to the station to catch the Sanyo Main Line for Miyajimaguchi Station. This train was a bit older than the ones I've come to be familiar with in Tokyo, and as such had no English written or otherwise. Confused after having stopped 6 times without reaching our destination, we got off at Miyauchi Kushido Station to find out if we were on the right track (unintended pun). We ended up being on the right train, but had one more stop before reaching our station. We had to wait about 15 minutes for another train to arrive. On the first train, there was a middle aged man across from me, a school girl next to him, and an older man next to me. The older man spoke to the school girl for the entire trip, and she just nodded along smiling occasionally to let him know she was listening. I could tell she didn't really want to talk to him though. It wasn't until towards the end that I realized he reeked of booze. I'd like to think that the drunk old geezer was telling her about how a soda pop cost only 5 yen in his day. After finally arriving, we headed to the ferry terminus a few blocks away and waited for our ride.The ferry was only about a 10 minute trip across the water. We reached land and then immediately proceeded to the right towards the large gateway and shrine. Through here was a long strip of shops aimed at tourists. All of the shops sold basically the same items, so there wasn't much variety. Along the way was a nice little shop that sold deep fried cheeses and meats. I had chicken skewers and my God were they delicious. We visited the shrine and then said our goodbyes to the lovely Miyajima Island. At the station we met some Americans who made a day trip out of Miyajima. One of the guys was from Fresno actually, but it didn't appear as if he had been there long.

Our ferry.

Deer roam the island here.

They approach people without a care in the world.

The one standing here was trying to chew open a box in this shop.

Back at Hiroshima Station (conveniently attached to the Hiroshima Granvia Hotel), we scoured the area for something to eat. We decided upon a ramen place, closest to the hotel lobby. Outside, a trash cart being pushed around could be heard playing a polyphonic version of Yankee Doodah.

Daniel

Eh, you know the drill. I don't feel like writing so much as I do sleeping, so I'll try to make this brief.

Today we went to Shizuoka via the bullet train, Hikari. Its top speed is a staggering 170 MPH, allowing us to traverse around 100 miles from our hotel in a mere hour with just 2 stops. I didn't take any pictures of the outside of the train, so just google the term, "Hikari Shinkansen." The seats offered more than enough leg room and reclined to an angle that wouldn't bother the passenger behind you, while still offering you the comfort you need. Something interesting about the train staff was that whenever they would exit your car through the door at the end, they would turn and bow to the entire car before proceeding.

Pretty roomy huh?

We arrived in Shizuoka around noon I believe, and proceeded on foot to Sumpu park, home of the former Sumpu Castle and Tokugawa Shogunate. Walking through the east gate, we happened upon a class of elementary school kids. As we walked by them, a few of them here and there would say to us, "Haro" (Hello). Beyond the gate was the park, and despite there not being a whole lot to see here, it was very calming in itself. In the center near some flower beds, stood a large statue of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the  founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Next to it, was an orange mandarin tree planted by the very same shogunate himself over 400 hundred years ago. On the opposite side of the park was a small, but absolutely gorgeous tea garden called Momijiyama. It only cost 150 JPY to enter, but to our surprise included an English audio guide and free tea in the casual tea house. I'm unsure if I can be 100% certain with this statement, but this may have been the most beautiful place I've ever seen. That aside though, the real gem in this expedition was the audio guide. I am pretty sure the voice for the audio guide was George Takei. I'm not sure how it came to be and I have nothing substantial to back up my claim, but I am almost positive it was him. I know he is fluent in Japanese, and spend some time studying at Sophia University in Tokyo, so maybe its not so far fetched after all. Needless to say, this was extremely entertaining and I found myself struggling to keep in the laughter. Soon we got to the tea house, a casual little place with little tables and a long bench along the wall. There were four types of green tea available: gyokuro, sencha, matcha, and hojicha. We ordered the hojicha and my God was it tasty. I usually don't like any kind of coffee or tea, but this kind really did it for me. I definitely want to buy some while I'm here. Also, in the tea house were some things you can buy (all in Japanese but presumably packages of tea) and one such item was priced at a hefty 35000 JPY (450 USD). This was the exception to the rule though, as everything else was more or less affordable. 

A nice panoramic of the tea garden.

With two hours to kill before our ride back to Shinagawa, we found a Don Quijote store (popular discount chain). I can't explain how cool it was without going into immense detail, so rest assured it was indeed a cool store. 

Don Quijote. All four floors are packed with just about everything you could think of.

So that wasn't exactly as brief as I had intended, but I figured it would end up this way anyway.


Daniel

A cute little Shiba puppy in a pet shop in Shizuoka.

 Manhole covers in Japan are often decorated.

These things were all over the place in Sumpu Park.

I can now die happy, although another week would be good too.

Regarding the title, that comes at the end of the story. Until then, I'll tell you all about my night.

I met Yuya in the hotel lobby around 16:30 (4:30PM) or so and we went to Shibuya to see the crossing. Right outside of Shibuya Station is Shibuya Crossing, a very busy intersection which stops traffic in all directions for people to cross in all directions including diagonally from corner to corner. This was Yuya's first time in Shibuya as well. We searched for a record store so that I could buy the new Perfume single but couldn't find one for awhile. We had dinner at a ramen shop where I got shio ramen and rice. Later as we walked back towards the station we found a CD store that was literally the first building we passed when we arrived in Shibuya. The store was called Tsutaya and shortly after exploring a bit, I fell in love with it. It had all the albums from my favorite (Japanese) bands. With the help of Yuya, I eventually found the single I was looking for and later I even found a new Base Ball Bear album that I didn't know even existed. It came out this month, I guess, but I didn't buy it because it was too expensive.

The statue at the Hachiko exit of Shibuya Sta. (Look up Hachiko if you don't know).

The new Kaela Kimura album, 8EIGHT8, from which I already have a few tracks.

A sign for Base Ball Bear's new album, which I really want now.

Afterward, we took the train to Shinjuku Station (The busiest train station in the world with nearly 3.5 million people using it each day) and made our way to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. Here we took the elevator to the 45th floor, where there is a restaurant, a few shops, and is of course, an observation deck. This was the highest up I've ever been in a building. This was also Yuya's first time in Shinjuku. When we arrived back at Shinagawa Station, we said our goodbyes and parted ways. Yuya says he will come to America next year, and we will still stay in contact of course. I definitely want to come back to Tokyo in a year or two to study abroad. I long to be a Tokyoite. Besides perhaps having a lovely female Japanese companion, I want nothing more.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

From the 45th floor.

On my way back to the hotel from the station, there was a class of school girls in high school uniforms. One of them said, "ハロー," or "Haro" (hello). She obviously recognized me as a gaijin (foreigner) and as some Japanese often do, greeted me in English. In response to having their attention, I showed them my shirt, which I now consider  to be one of the single greatest investments I've ever made. This of course resulted in laughter all around. I could hardly contain my excitement from here on. After reading the shirt, they all began to push one particular girl toward me, as if to say, "You should be his girlfriend," in that joking way my own friends and I have done. One girl looked at me and put her hand out, signaling me to shake hands with her. With that, I proceeded to my room. As I walked, I began to think, "Why am I walking away? I should stay there and try to converse with them. They're Japanese school girls for God's sake." I decided once I got to my room, I would dump my backpack and take my iPod (with Japanese phrase book app) and go back down to speak with them. I found them where I left them, and the girl who shook my hand recognized me again and waved. After scrolling through the phrase book deciding what to say, I approached her and the other girls and spoke.


Me: Konnichiwa (Hello)
Her: Konnichiwa (Hello)
Me: Watashi no namae wa Daniel desu. (My name is Daniel.)
[She high fives her two friends on both sides of her. They seem impressed.]
Her: (She says something, but I don't know/remember what it was exactly.)
Me: Oai dekite ureshi desu (I'm pleased to meet you.)
Her: (Again I forget, but she probably said something similar back.)
Me: Onamae wa nan desuka? (What's your name?)
Her: (She speaks too fast for me to grasp what she says.)
Me: Eh?
Her: Madoka.
Me: Ah, Madoka.
[She looks away and then back at me with almost sad eyes as she signals with her hands that she has to leave, as the class is moving]
Me: Sayonara. (Goodbye.)
Her: Sayonara...Mai Darin (My Darling.)

Needless to say, this is the reason I can now die happy. I am as giddy as a...well...school girl! Its about 01:00 (1AM) now, so I really should get to sleep.

Until next time,
Daniel