Tokyo and goodbyes

Hello everyone! I hope the weather's been lovely, wherever you may be. Snow came very recently in Japan, which is pretty fun, but I'm sure that the novelty will wear off pretty soon. Luckily it's just a dinky little ground layer that'll melt as soon as the sun hits it right.

As promised, today I'll talk about my trip to Tokyo, which was amazing! Except for the bus rides. Those were pretty....not amazing.

The day before we arrived in Tokyo, the other Australians and I all met in Wakayama city, at the bus station. It was close to around 8:50 at night, so we were all still pretty energetic. Then we took an 8 hour bus ride, and after that everyone was significantly less energetic. I'm pretty sure that Jaida didn't sleep at all, so by the time 6:50 in the morning rolled around, she was wrecked. It's not that the seats were uncomfortable; they were just not at all conducive to sleep. I personally got around four hours.

The nerds have arrived.

Our guide took us to go buy some coffee, though, and that seemed to tide us over for the rest of the day. 

First stop was the tallest building in Tokyo, SkyTree! Actually four years before, SkyTree wasn't the tallest; that title was original claimed by Tokyo Tower. I think SkyTree was finished around three years ago, and is around 600 meters tall. Usually lines are pretty long, but our guide, Tom, got us reservations beforehand, so we were able to bypass that. 

 

Just a side note--Ronen, the boy in the middle, brought his skateboard because he wanted to skate in Tokyo. He did a few tricks near SkyTree and got yelled at. Heh.

The view was really nice, though we didn't go to the top. That would've required more money and a wait in a really long line. I think that the viewing deck was alright, though. It was certainly tall enough for me. 

Fujisan~

A view straight down--yikes!

After SkyTree, we were joined by Tom's family, his nephew, and his nephew's friend, who was an exchange student from Vietnam. Our party grew to be the size of ten, which started to get really difficult to keep track of, especially in the middle of Tokyo, when the crowds are enormous. There were times when the only thing that kept me from getting lost was the sight of Jaida's bright orange hair. You have to go there to really understand how tightly packed everything is in Tokyo. Anyway, the next thing we did was take a boat to Shibuya! And let me tell you, just the boat itself was worth the trip, because that thing looked so cool. 

I'm not sure why it was designed this way, but whatever. It was neat.

From left to right: Fuum (I'm not sure if that's how her name is spelled, but that's what it sounded like, so apologies), Jaida, and me. 

The Rainbow bridge. Which does in fact turn into a "Rainbow" Bridge at night. I didn't get to see it though. 

Too fabulous.

At Shibuya, we did some shopping, and also got to see the giant robot that was built there! Apparently there's some famous anime called Gundam, which is where the robot comes from. I'll probably see it at some point. Is it just me, or do a lot of anime utilize giant robots?

After we saw the giant robot, Ronen and Dimitri were dying to go to the anime store in Harajuku, so we caught a train over. Harajuku's enormous, and Tom told us that it's considered to have some of the best shopping in Tokyo. I can believe it. 

Ronen and Luffy, at the anime store. Best friends for life.

Looking back on this trip, we fit so much into one day. I have the strong desire to stop using literary terminology like, "Then,", "Next", and "After". 

Anyway, next we headed over to Shinjuku, where the shopping was still...okay, but less classy and more very strange. Tom let us loose on a famous shopping street, and I wandered for an hour, and some of the stuff I saw was really farfetched. I ended up buying a tuna salad sandwich crepe, because it looked awesome. When everyone else saw my street crepe, they all wanted street crepes too, and filled them with things like chocolate and cheesecake and stuff. (I did end up buying a second crepe, filled with chocolate cake).

Then Ronen decided that he really wanted to go skating in Tokyo, so we all found a skate park and hung out there for a while. At that point it was getting pretty late, so Tom's family decided to go back home. Here's a picture of us, Tom, his two boys, Yuuka, and Fuum. 

Eugh, bad lighting. 

Also at this point, our lack of sleep caught up with us, so we decided to head back to the bus station. It was about that time, anyway. We thanked Tom and said our goodbyes, and then left Tokyo. 

On another eight hour bus ride (which Jaida again slept through none of), but that's neither here nor there.

My opinion of Tokyo: it is enormous. It's so huge, I don't think there is any possible way to visit everything in one day. This being said: thanks to our excellent guide, we saw quite a bit, and the parts we did see were amazing. It's a bustling, beautiful city, and way cleaner than I expected; I highly recommend that anyone who wants to should visit. 

Just...do yourselves a favor and don't take the bus. 

This post is also titled 'goodbyes' because, a week ago, the Australians finally left for home. I was very sad of course (don't tell them), and will miss them dearly. I was lucky to have such awesome friends for the first four months of my stay! 

Jaida, Ronen and Dimitri, if any of you are reading this: I'm glad you all made it back safely. Come visit America when you have the time. 

(I was going to talk about my Hiroshima trip too, but that would've taken too long I think. I'll post about Hiroshima in the next week or so.)

Why moths and I do not get along, and Japanese shougatsu

Hello everyone! I know it's been two weeks since my last update, which is not all that bad from last time. Things have been really, really busy, so I'm actually going to split this post into two and post the second one next week.

Alright, so first things first: I actually visited my first onsen two days before I moved to my new home and forgot to post about it. I think it's actually a bigger deal than most people would think, just because I was fretting about it for so long. The reason? Well, if you haven't heard of Japanese onsen, I will now tell you: everyone is butt naked. Me and my delicate Western modesty was very, very nervous to experience this.

The thing is that it's really hard to be self-conscious when everyone else in the room is naked too. It seems like everyone's got this sort of 'I don't see you you don't see me' mentality; somehow the Japanese have perfected talking to people without looking away from the face. This mentality was also helped when I removed my glasses, because I am almost blind without them, so I couldn't see what I was looking at anyway. I'm...sure I must've freaked out some of the Japanese, though, because I have a tendency to accidentally stare when I'm trying to figure out who or what I'm looking at.

Anyway, the actual onsen was really, really nice. The water is kept at a steady 42 degrees Celsius, and the water though the water isn't all that deep, it means you can stretch out on the ground. There's an indoor pool and an outdoor pool, and the outdoor pool is awesome, especially in the summer. Usually there's a pretty nice view nearby, and the air is nice and cool, so you're not baking on all sides at once. Very relaxing.

Obviously I did not take any pictures.

Anyway, next: Japanese New Years, or as I said in the title, Japanese Shougatsu with my new host family.

On December 31st, or 'omisoka', I helped my mom make some of the 'osechi ryori', or the food that we all eat on New Years. I'm not entirely sure what kind of food I worked with, only that one of them was carrot. The other one was a Japanese renkon, sort of a radish like thing, and a konyaku, which when you say it properly sounds like 'cognac'. The konyaku and carrot were pretty easy, but I completely messed up the renkon. Kudos to the host mom, who came up and cleaned up the mess I made.

We did not stay up till twelve, or at least I didn't; I have become attached to my sleep as of late, and went to bed at ten. The next morning I woke up, and for brunch we got to have the osechi ryori!

Here's a picture of the table with the shrine in the background. 

There's the actual food. 

Close-up of the food, by Tadahimi

(Tadahimi is my host brother, by the way.)

The food was awesome, as I'm sure you're all able to see from the picture. The fish we ate is sea bream, but the way, which I've never had but was pretty awesome. 

Here's a pic of the family on Shougatsu!

Left to right: Dad, me, Mom, Tadahimi, Kouji. Not the most flattering picture, thanks Kouji.

Anyway, since Kouji only came for Shougatsu, he actually left a few days after this. But not before we went to Kobe! 

China town in Kobe!

As you can see, my mom is much more fashionable than I.

We went shopping in Kobe, and had lots of food. Not a lot of sightseeing, but the food was great and the shopping was not too bad. 

873And finally, I have a story to tell all of you, which should be pretty funny.

So I was in brass band on a Thursday, the Thursday before school started. It was the end of the day, so we were all cleaning up, and I was basically just hanging around waiting for people to tell me to do something. So I'm standing there, and suddenly I notice this moth flying around above my head, about the size of my fist. I'm talking ENORMOUS. 

Me being me, I just give it a wary look and forget about it. 

A minute later, I am aware of something large and black flying at my face. After the moment, I acknowledge it was the moth. In the moment it looked like the spawn of all things dark and unholy was flying at me. I did what any sane martial artist would do and did a controlled fall backwards, right to the floor. 

I think there was one girl who acted concerned about me. The others were just laughing. 

But this was not the end of the moth. Oh no. 

Ten minutes later, I'm standing with the saxophones, checking my phone to see what time it is. And all the sudden something starts MOVING INSIDE MY COAT. 

I immediately yanked off my coat. Japanese has fled me. I have begun growling very loudly in English, and all are confused. 

Then my SHIRT STARTS MOVING. 

INSIDE MY SHIRT. 

I was about two seconds from tearing off my shirt before the moth finally flew out. But somehow, that moth stayed in there for ten minutes before I finally noticed it. I also accidentally taught the Japanese some new swear words, which they gleefully repeated for minutes afterwards, on a completely separate note. 

Anyway, the next post will be in a week, and it'll be about the trip to Tokyo I took! Look forward to it, and don't let any moths fly into your shirt!

(One thing I will mention. It is cold right now. Not as cold as Sycamore, but you know what? I ride to school everyday in a skirt. On a bike. Why don't the Japanese believe in pants?)