Archive for July, 2007
{ July 31, 2007 @ 2:03 pm }
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{ Kyoto, Uncategorized }
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• Haircut
o When I first starting buying expensive things I never imagined I would sink to buying pants that had previously cost $150… I never thought I would buy belts worth $100… and I sure as hell never thought I’d get my hair done for a price around $100… and yet all of that has happened now… granted only the hair happened in japan though. The story of my haircut today is rather amazing. It shows how everyone in japan is kind… how much money I’ll spend on something as trivial as hair… and just how wonderful japan is.
o I arrived at Hair Boutique 24 at around 11:30 in the morning… I don’t think I left till after 2:30 in the afternoon… it was a long morning of hair. I walked into the salon with a picture of the cut that I wanted done… and asked “ikura desuka… how much is this?” the response was “30,000 yen… $300 “… I kinda laughed and asked how much the cut and coloring was… and his response was a nice reasonable 6000 yen or about $60. Ofcourse, I knew this wouldn’t look as good, so I was a bit disappointed, but I thought… ok, this’ll do. The hair salon was very nice and I started to get my hair cut… about 45 minutes into the cut… the guy cutting my hairs turns to the guy next to him and says something about straightening. The other guy manages to convey to me that the cut really won’t work if my hair isn’t straight… I look at the picture of the cut I want… and have to agree.. Then, before my eyes, the other guy asks “how much can you pay”… I don’t want to be overly cheap since clearly they were giving me an insane deal so I said $100… or it’s yen equivalent. Then, surprisingly me completely, the man agrees. As it turns out, the guy who knew a bit of English was the father of the guy cutting my hair. The father, his wife, and their son own the shop and they all cut hair. I was completely thrown though that he would give me such a great cut for 1/3 of the price. Now… here comes the most amazing part… as I’m getting my hair straightened… the son comes out with a typed of piece of paper… he wasn’t confident with his spoken English, but he was confident he could type what he wanted to say. He wrote basically “I’m worried about this price… are you sure it’s ok with you to spend this much for the cut, the coloring, and the straightening… I want to make sure you will still have enough money left over to have fun in japan.” I hurriedly said the equivalent of don’t worry about… and thanks so much to him, but this really touched me. Most hairdressers don’t care what’ll happen to the customer after they leave their shop… the important part is to do the cut as quickly as possible and to get the money. This just amazed me… of all the kind people in Japan, the man who cut my hair clearly takes the gold metal. The haircut took a long time… straightening a few times, coloring, and cutting… so there was a small tv and a huge list of movies… I watched the bourne identity and managed to get through the entire movie… and then start on the transporter. About 2/3 of the way through the cut… I was asked if I wanted anything to drink… coffee… etc… milk tea he asked? I said sure that would be fine, and they brought me a glass of tea, milk in a little cup, and some suger w/ it. I really don’t get their kindness… it amazes me. I took many lots of pictures with everyone at the hair place and they were so kind about it. I’m too amazed… I really am
• The rest of the day
o By the time my haircut was finished, a large portion of the day had dwindled passsed… as I wanted to return to the hotel after and drop off my ipod… get a drink… and check a few emails. I decided to head to Kyoto at around 5 to check out what they had to offer in the dinner department and then see what the shopping was like. I found a small place with had some great edamame… I had this along with miso soup and some skewered chicken… simple, cheap, tasty…. Excellent. I wandered around Kyoto afterwards and came across a beautiful temple (Kyoto has a few of them), so I took a few pictures. I browsed the shops at the train station, but after my hair cut decided to wait till Tokyo to make any further purchases… I feel as though I’ve been on trains for too much of today, so I plan to walk a lot tomorrow. I’m back at the hotel now looking over my pictures… time to take a bit of a rest.
{ July 31, 2007 @ 2:03 pm }
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{ Festival, Food, Osaka }
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• Morning
o I started today a bit late, but it turned into a fun day. I took the train to Kyobashi and then to Odawa to find the place I’m getting my hair done at. That was an adventure. When I arrived at Kyobashi I was rather hungry, so I decided to look in the department store basement and try to find food. A host of possibilities emerged… yet I chose the path less traveled. I decided to make a breakfast out of samples. There were so many samples and they were so delicious… it was wonderful. I had some pieces of pastry… a few vegetables… some other little tidbits… toss it down with a drink from a vending machine… and life is good. Unfortunately the train to Odawa cost me $2, but once I got there I was so confused. I couldn’t find the hair place at all. I thought I’d ask someone… so I asked at a random grocery store and the woman decided to come on a walk with me to find the store. We walked around for 15 minutes practically… and I felt so bad, but she didn’t want to leave until we found the store. We finally found it though… and I thanks her so much… but it wasn’t open today ahahha, after all that… so I’m going tomorrow.
• Osaka Castle
o I decided after coming back from the hair place that it was time to see Osaka castle… and it was def worth it. I took the train to kyobashi again and then went one step further and ended up at some station near Osaka castle… and low and behold.. there was a festival. I think I’ve been to so many festivals here I’m losing count. Festivals are amazing for two reasons… food… atmosphere. There was a great food… and the atmosphere was perfect. I had this pinapple pop… which was real pineapple… frozen… in poplike form… brilliant… delicious. After having my pineapple pop… I wandered around and headed up to Osaka castle. It took maybe ten minutes to reach the building and it was beautiful… I didn’t bother paying $5 to go inside because I heard the inside was rather disappointing. The outside though, was far from disappointing. After seeing Osaka castle, I headed back to the festival to get some yakisoba… tasty. I have resisted getting takoyaki (octopus balls)… but I really should try them while I’m in Osaka… oh well, another day. I rounded my food intake off with some shaved ice (mango flavored)… delicious. The interesting thing about the food in japan is that everything you eat lists how many calories it has. How convenient… how brilliant… how simple. We should do that tooo……
o After having some amazing food at the Osaka castle area, I headed back to the hotel to relax a bit, take a shower, do some laundry and then have dinner eventually. I really wanted to go to a restaurant, but the restaurants around my hotel are so sketchy. I trust familymart (the convenience store) much more. I looked at the food at the grocery store near here and I was frightened out of my mind. Thus… because of the failure in reliable places around me I had a dinner of a rice ball, a steamed meat bun, some edemame, and a drink. Not bad… but could have been better.
o I decided to ready some more Harry Potter following dinner… and then took a nap. That concludes the day basically.
{ July 29, 2007 @ 12:09 am }
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{ Festival, Food, Kyoto }
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• Morning time
o I woke up this morning and I think I’m still a little bit drunk….just a little. The shower helped a lot to clear my head, but I plan to wait an hour or so before doing any activities. I love the free tea that we get in the lobby, and it’s slowly helping to wake me up. No adventures for a bit this morning, so I might go back upstairs and take a little nap.
• Kyoto
o At around 11 I decided to head to Kyoto, I grabbed my umbrella and my map of Kyoto and walked to the train station. Unfortunately, I forgot my rail pass so I headed back to the hotel and grabbed my pass. I was about to head out when I ran into some friends of mine I’d met at the hotel who were heading to Kyoto as well. I decided to wait a half an hour and then we all headed out to Kyoto. We shared stories and talked and had a nice time on the trip to Kyoto, which wasn’t that long… probably 40 minutes. When we arrived, we stopped at their hotel where they dropped off their bags and then we decided to look around for a place to eat. We went to a restaurant named Sato that had Shabu Shabu. For those of you that don’t know… Shabu Shabu is an amazing dish. It consists of a large pot of water, which sits in the middle of the table and starts boiling. Then… you get a large plate of vegetables, which you toss into the boiling water to add flavor. Third, you have a plate of raw thin strips of meat. Finally, you get a few sauces. You then slowly drop pieces of meat into the water and watch it cook instantly. Using the sauces and the vegetables and the meat you make yourself an amazing meal. It was wonderful.
o After the meal we decided to walk around a bit and just hang out in Kyoto… we walked along the river and bought some fireworks and just hung out. Kyoto is very quiet in the daytime and I felt as though we were the only people there. There were many cars on the streets, but in general other than the few bicyclists I saw no one else on the street. As it turned out there was a festival that night at around 8. It took us a while to get to where the festival was taking place, but we just followed the many girls and guys wearing yukatas and that soon led us to the festival. There was one girl wearing a kimono and a power ranger mask….wtf? The fireworks were breathtaking though. They were quite possibly the best fireworks I’ve ever seen. Almost right after the fireworks stopped it started to rain lightly… luckily I had my umbrella. Since the station was so crowed we took a brief train to Nara and attempted to find a restaurant… it took a few minutes but we found this 24-hour place, which had great food for very cheap. After dinner I headed back to catch the last train to Osaka.
o We all exchanged numbers before I left and since they’re going to Tokyo, we plan to meet up and possibly climb mount fuji if things work out according to plan. Life is good.
{ July 29, 2007 @ 12:09 am }
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{ Nara, Osaka, Temples }
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• Morning
o I woke up this morning feeling good, and decided to take a nice shower to wake myself up. This worked very well and by the time I was changing in my room I felt ready to tackle the millions of temples that Nara had to offer. I realized by the time I got to Nara though that I was in no position to see all the temples
• Nara
o I decided to take the train to Nara, which turned out to be an easy ride, but it was a bit of a trip. First of all, the train stopped ever few stations to pause for a bit and by the time I arrived at Nara I had been traveling for close to an hour… yet, I was worth it.
o Arriving in Nara, it was clear that this was not Osaka or Tokyo. Every few feet you would see a small temple. Everywhere there were shops selling kimonos and charms. It was a nice quiet town and it reminded me a bit of Nagano if it were much bigger.
• Temple Time
o I decided to consult my map as to find the nearest temple which should I thought be easy enough, but it was about a mile and a half walk. By nearest temple, I mean nearest large temple. Along my walk, I started dying of hunger so I stopped by a curry place. Curry is really big in japan… it tastes great and it’s cheap. For about $5 you can get a very filling lunch that consists of rice, curry, and some vegetables or meet. I also decided to pick up a drink because I was losing a pound of sweat every few steps as I walked towards the temples. In the end I don’t remember exactly how many temples I saw, but I think it was atleast 10. There was a 3 story pavilion that was beautiful, yet it paleed in comparison to the 5 story pavilion that sat next to it overlooking a pond. Even so, these two were out of the ordinary, but were nothing compared to the temple that held the giant Buddah statue, which was 53+ feet high. I have never seen a statue even remotely that large in my life. It cost $4 to get in to see the giant statue but it was worth it. The building that housed it was also the largest wooden temple/structure in the world. I ran into some Korean girls at the temple who spoke English, which was a bit fun. After the temples though, I decided that since I had spent around 5 hours in Nara it was time to go back to Osaka since I was in dire need of a shower and some rest. The train ride back felt amazing since it was nice and cool in the train and I slept for about half of it.
• Back in Osaka
o Arriving back in Osaka I’m greeted by the guy selling fake louis vuitton bags who appears to have taken a liking to me. He’s one sketchy individual, but he appears to have good intentions… or atleast not bad intentions. I get to the hotel and go online for an hour or so, talking with friends, catching up, and all around relaxing from my trip. After my battery starts running low I decide that it’s time for a shower and so I take an amazing shower and then head out to the grocery store for a lunch/dinner. I decided to go outside the comfort zone and order a steamed meet bun, a rice thing, and a little red bean paste something for desert. I also snag a “pocket juicer” (mango juice) from the vending machine. This runs me about $4 and does wonders for my hunger. I settle down in my room and read some more Harry Potter and relax. After about an hour I decide to take a nap and wake up later and possibly go to the bar that some of the guys in the hotel were asking, but as it turns out things go differently.
• The game
o I wake up at around 11:30 and head downstairs with my laptop to talk with a friend whom I promised to talk to online later and low and behold what’s playing on the tv but a soccer game between korea and japan. Quick information point—korea and japan have amazing soccer players who could own the US players. I settle down on my laptop, but soon I’m absorbed in the game, so I decide to set it down and pick it up later. The game is zero zero and they’re in overtime. It’s amazing.. the players are making these wonderful saves and finally it comes to penalty shoot out. The Koreans manage to win by one penalty shot and the room goes crazy. Point of information-this hotel has lots of Koreans. A guy from England breaks out some plum sake and stars handing everyone cups. As we all finish our first cup of sake a girl from korea pops some money into the vending machine and out pop 5 large beers which she begins pouring into cups. Long story short… we all end up rather drunk. Yet, it was hilarious, and I got to meet all these random people. The one downside of the night was as I returned to my room and attempted to get to sleep it was rather tricky as the room kept on spinning. After about 15 minutes I was able to counteract this by getting into a perfect position, but it was a bit of a pain.
{ July 27, 2007 @ 5:37 am }
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{ Food, Osaka, shopping }
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• Morning
o I woke up this morning and low and behold… my jet lag is almost completely gone. I woke up around 7… so that was good. Last night I had been really worried that I was running out of money too fast, but as I was calculating it this morning I realized I was perfectly on target haha, so my worries were for nothing. That was probably the best part of my morning. After that I took a nice shower and met someone else from the US who almost went to Amherst college, so we talked a bit… cool guy. I decided that today I would see the Umeda sky building, which is an amazing building in Osaka that overlooks the entire city. It also has two escalators that connect he two buildings that compose it .
• Off to Osaka
o I decided to take the train to Osaka (surprisingly enough) because it’s free… yes, all trains are free when you have a jr pass… only $500 and your soul. Ok, just kidding. Anyway, I took the train to Umeda (center of Osaka), which took about 15 minutes and arrived at the station at about 9 oclock ish. I was too early for the umeda sky building, so I decided to get some breakfast a drink from a vending machine. Wow… I love the vending machines. For breakfast I had a strawberry yogurt thing… for $1.50… mm, yum, strawberry. By the time I was finished the umeda sky building had opened up, so I traveled to the top for a nice sum of $4 (500 yen) because I said I was a high school student… ok, morals down 5 points… but I’m not too worried. The view was amazing… you could see all of Osaka and they even had free binoculars at the top.
o I decided to look at a few shops after the tower and I arrived a place called comme ca isms which I had been before. The only difference was this come ca isms stores had 6 floors… count ‘em. It was rather amazing and I ended up buying this really nice hoody for a reasonable price. Did I mention how much I am liking the clothes here… I know, probably not enough. After shopping at comme ca isms I headed to this underground mall to explore and possibly shop more. I ended up having a nice conversation with this cute girl who owned a shop selling jewelery… I was trying to find a present for my sister, but unfortunately she didn’t have anything… still, talking in Japanese always makes my day more interesting. I’ve been doing a lot of it.
o The mall didn’t really have anything I wanted to buy… or rather, anything I could buy but it did have something better…, which came in the juicy package called food. Wow, Osaka is the master of food. I paid about $4 for a huge lunch that included all the essentials: miso soup, little bit of salad, random veges, curry, rice, random Japanese fish… and water. Wow… I was exstatic and full.
• Back from Osaka
o Oh, this is a great story… I had two fun encounters on my way back. First… got to the train station and was rather confused as to which train to take… but help came. Back story… bording the escalator after a bunch of Japanese school girls one of them tripped and I said something along of lines of “careful… that’s dangerous” or something like that. They turned in my direction and said something like “he knows Japanese… amazing…wow… ahhh” anyway, long story short… as I’m looking up at the train schedule really confused I decide to ask for help. I turn to one of the girls and ask her what train to take to shinimamiya station (in Japanese)… she looks rather confused, but another girl seems to know what’s up… so I ask her. After a bit the whole bunch of school girls trails after me to the train schedule and finally we figure out which train to take. Ahaha, hilarious.
o As I’m taking the train back, I see a kid who’s shaking his shirt after getting into the train and I say something along the lines of “hot isn’t it” and he responds back… yeah, just a bit. We hit it off… and have this conversation for the next few stops about where I’m from, the weather, layers of clothing, japan, cellphones the us, all kinds of random stuff… it just felt great to be able to speak so much Japanese.
o Following this I arrived back at my hotel just in time to write all of this down… I think I’m going to head off to this park by my hotel… which no doubt will be extremely hot and I’ll die of lack of water hahaha, I’m not too worried.
{ July 25, 2007 @ 10:42 pm }
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{ Food, Osaka, shopping }
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• Morning
o I take back much of what I said yesterday. I think that I just got off on the wrong foot in Osaka… probably just the fact that the portion of town in which I’m situated seemed so sketchy just didn’t bode well with me. Yet, what the town has in sketchiness, the hotel makes up with the quality of people. I’ve met a guy from Australia, 3 guys from korea, and 3 girls from korea. Everyone has been really nice and helpful and clearly just looking to have a good time. I was using the showers this morning and I find it’s such a freeing thing to not have to worry about what you look like. The showers here are basically a lot of shower heads on the far side of one wall and on the other side is a large bath for soaking (not for cleaning). You shower yourself off, and soap yourself off and thien just like the hotsprings you soak for a bit. It’s relaxing and very freeing because everyone is naked, so you don’t think anything of it. Anyway, wearing clothes doesn’t change how we look underthem haha, so we might as well get used to how we look. I’m going to go in search of breakfast (not really sure what the menu is this morning… I’m going for a rice ball maybe and some pocari swear (ion refilling drink…tasty)… and then shopping in a less sketchy district.
• Shopping
o I think I’ve figured out what I don’t like about Osaka… I don’t like the fact that it’s really complicated to navigate. In Tokyo (for the one day I was there) I had no trouble getting places… but in Osaka it’s rather difficult. Yet, I’ve come to the conclusion that Osaka is not as good as Tokyo, but not a bad place either. I went to Shinsaibashi to go shopping and when the 3 hours or more was over I came out with a pair of pants, a vestish thing, and a shirt. Together the cost was about $95, so I think I’m doing pretty good… my guess for how much the jeans would cost was around $80, so I’m def beating my estimate. After shopping and probably losing about 5 pounds in sweat I decided that the best way to fix this loss of body fat was to go eat something. I went to this hotel restaurant where I was about to get a lunch special for about $12 that was delicious. I honestly can say I don’t know what was in it other than soba, random vegetables, and random fish. I really have no idea, but it was delicious except for one little bowl of something. The American menu they had looked more expensive and didn’t seem as tasty, so I decided to risk it and order something on the Japanese menu… def a good choice.
o Finding the subway to get back to my hotel was a bit of a chore, but people are so kind, so once I had a few sets of directions I was able to find it easily. I have a million pictures to post online, so now I must go.
• Dinner etc
o I was debating going to a club this evening, but I never got around to it… instead I decided to go to a bar and maybe meet random people… the plan didn’t really go as planned. I went to a bar in the shinsaibashi district called penguin something. It was hilarious… they had the penguin movie (I forget the name) playing on a tv… some trance music… an attractive bar tender, but I just ordered a rum and mused about the day. I wasn’t feeling anything, so I decided to head to another bar and see if there was anything more interesting, but I didn’t spot anything good. Thus, I headed to a Korean barbecue place which was rather fun. You got your food uncooked and then you cooked it over the coals… I just ordered a bit of meat and rice and a beer. I’m really a fan of Japanese beer. It’s rather cheap and much better than what you find at college haha. I headed back at around 12.
{ July 25, 2007 @ 12:26 pm }
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{ Festival, Food, Osaka }
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• Morning
o As per usual I woke up rather early this morning (around five)… I really need to fix this habit, because while I enjoy waking up and seeing the sunrise and taking a walk, I could really use the sleep for the long days that I have planned. Luckily though, I managed to use the time to catch up with friends and to post a few more pictures online, so it wasn’t all a waste. Also, I managed to use the onsen (hot springs) at the ryokan one last time and that was amazing. I don’t think I’ve described exactly how the Japanese onsen work before, so here goes. First thing you have to realize is that you are expected to be naked. I think the point of this is that the onsen are meant to bring the people in them to a sort of peaceful state and any objects that could interfere are meant to be left at the door. Clothes are a clear indication of class and as such they have no place at the onsen. Before one can enter, one must first wash them self. This is rather like a shower; you spray water all over your body, soap up, and then wash the soap away. Once you’re completely suds free you may enter the onsen. The onsen is kept at something degrees celius, I really don’t remember, but it’s rather hot… so prepare to enter slowly.
o Following the hotsprings I decided to take my usual walk around Yudanaka (the town in Nagano), which was as usual relaxing, and hunger inducing. I decided to follow up the hunger pains with a drink from one of the many vending machines on the street. Japan really loves their vending machines… and now…so do I. Checking out from the ryokan was easy enough they even gave me a present of some origami. I really don’t know how I’m going to make all these delicate things I’ve acquired last till I get home, but I hope I somehow accomplish it.
• Trains
o I’m going to Osaka today, and that requires a myriad of trains… first I go from Yudanka to Nagano…. Then to Nagoya….then to Shinosaka…and finally to shinimamiya where I’m staying. This takes about 5 ½ hours, but it’s worth it. Osaka is known as the stomach of japan and I plan to make the most of this. Ahh… important to mention: when waiting for my train to Nagoya I stopped at one of the small convenience stores and picked up an Onigiri which I’d never had before. Onigiri are nori wrapped (seaweed) rice triangles. They’re simple, but perfect for a snack or a meal if you have a few. The place I went though had one which at the center there was tuna… and it was delicious. I’m going to get a few more when I finally end up in Nagoya… this train ride is 170 minutes… luckily I got a good seat, the scenery is beautiful and so is the girl sitting next to me… so no complaints. The train I’m on is called “shinano” which became abundantly clear to me when the announcement inside the train switched to English and referred to it as “our shinano.” Engrish is amazing and I really can’t get enough of it. Also, going through the mountains of japan by train is the way to go. Sure… it takes a while to get from place to place, but you can’t beat the scenery and there’s even a little snack lady who comes around with all sorts of tasty looking food and drinks. I’m sipping on my milk tea at the moment, so I’m satisfied, but were that not the case I have no doubt in my mind I’d be fumbling with my Japanese to get something of the cart. Ah, time for a nap.
• Osaka
o Ok… getting into Osaka took a while… but it was rather a let down. The high point in the journey was taking the wrong bullet train and not having to pay for it because I was so nice to the women who was going around checking tickets… the usual. Anyway, arrived in Osaka and it turns out my hotel is located in the fucking sketchiest district ever. Tons o’ homeless people and old people and basically very few young people… not so amazing. And I’m here 9 nine days… I plan to spend only 8 hours here a day… sleeping… if I’m not clubbing or otherwise occupied. I really should just have booked a capsule hotel in the city lol… this place is kinda shitty. The room is fine I guess, but I just don’t like the location. I ended up going to the tenjin matsuri festival which was rather fun… I swear there were 50,000 people atleast. A hundred boats proceded through the harbor… a huge procession on the streets…tons of food that I didn’t eat (including octopus balls)… Yet, the best part wasn’t really the festival. I met this guy who had lived in new jersey for a year and his daughter (who was probably 8)… we ended up hanging out and he helped me find my way back and it was just nice to talk to him and his daughter was so cute hehe. She drew a picture of me… it was hilarious. I’m still rather bummed that Osaka just isn’t what I thought it would be. I envisioned another Tokyo, but without Tokyo… basically just misnamed. Osaka is nice and no doubt has enough food to last me for years, but I’m not feeling amazed as of yet.
o A note on couples: maybe it’s just after going to brandeis where the average couple which consists of .. a) a rather sketchy jewish guy and b) an annoying jewish girl who for what she lacks in substance makes up in cup size. Now this may be a bit of an overstatement, but there is some truth in it. Ok… my point is that couples at Brandeis are usually not something you’d see in magazines. The exception to the rule is if you’re asian whereas most asian couples are generally attractive. The thing that you see in japan (and surprisingly Osaka is no exception) is that there are couples everywhere and they’re both attractive. It’s a bit lonely at times. I’ll leave on that sublime note. I’m going to go find food, hopefully free drinks and then sleep for a while.
{ July 24, 2007 @ 4:15 am }
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{ Tokyo }
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*previously written in my “oh so cute mini pigs” notebook:
Being:
-business men dress in suits and clearly don’t sweat because they bike to work
-EVERYONE looks attractive… really not complaining
-guys shop more than girls (they always have shopping bags)
-(almost) every girl has a small LV handbag
-Beer/cig vending machines… ahahaha
-Cell phones can do anything and they are everywhere
people often have multiple cell phones (girl on the flight next to me had 3)
-plastic food to show what’s being served… brilliant
-soooooo clean, unusually so
-umbrellas are officially accessories… used when it’s not raining… everyone has a clear umbrella
-everyone wears the same light shade of pink.. if they aren’t wearing black
-people passing out free tissues everywhere w/ ads on them
-even salarymen have cell phone charms… ahahah
{ July 24, 2007 @ 4:08 am }
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{ Nagano }
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• Waking up etc.
o I woke up this morning around 5… must still have jet lag, but … just means more time to look around and get to know the area. One thing that I love about Japan is their attitude on umbrellas, which coincides strongly with my feelings about umbrellas. Carrying an umbrella when the sun is out works even better than sunglasses to help you see… andddd it keeps you much cooler…. Brilliant. I was taking a walk this morning (which is the perfect way to start the day after having a cup or two of green tea) and having an umbrella made the walk so much more enjoyable. I didn’t really have much of a breakfast, but I’m stuffed. I finished up my lunch from yesterday which was the rice wrapped in tofu… got a meji milk (apparently whole milk) from the vending machine in the lobby… topped it off with a bit of green tea… and then on my walk I managed to get a free little cake with red bean paste. Nagano is just plain beautiful… if I lived in Japan, I’d want to go here for a week or so on vacation just to relax, go to the hot springs and eat good food. I wouldn’t want to live here, but the place has such a calming atmosphere. Water runs throughout the whole town, on the sides of the roads and under the bridges… water. Everywhere. I know I said this before, but everyone is so nice in Japan… I think it must be because american’s are looked at as assholes by the general world community, so when you should that you’re not the stereotypical American people see you in a better light. I really don’t know (しらない) but… I’m not complaining. I’ll soon be heading to the monkey park… which should be fun. More walking, more hot springs, more delicious food (at a reasonable price)… wow
• Monkeys etc
o Wow… when I heard of the monkey park and hot springs, I thought there would be (I don’t know) maybe 10 monkeys at most… they would be cute etc and I would enjoy it. But no… there weren’t ten monkeys… there were tens of monkeys. There were easily over 50 monkeys, swimming in the hot springs, gallivanting on the path, and swinging through the trees. They ranged from cute to not so cute and from rather small to rather large. One tried to bop me when I took a picture of it, but I swiftly dodged it ahaha… nah, not really, but it did try to bop me. Anyway, getting to the monkey park was a bit of a journey, first a 10 minute car ride, then a 30 minute walk, but it was beautiful so I didn’t really care. What amazed me most about the monkey park was the extent of the hot springs… they were everywhere. Waterfalls of hot springs… you could see the steam coming off the water.
• Onsen Time
o Great fact for the day… maybe I should do this everyday ahaha, nah, that would be rather stupid…. But here is the fact for the day: Onsen means hot springs bath. See an Onsen → go inside. After seeing the monkeys I wanted to relax from the hike there and back and the heat that was slowly threatening to kill me. So therefore, I went to an Onsen. This sounds simple, but it wasn’t really. I was walking back from the monkeys and didn’t really know where an onsen was… luckily with my lacking Japanese I was able to ask this girl who decided to give me a ride because she was going in that direction. Moral of the story… be a confused foreigner and you will meet lots of random cute Japanese girls. And so… I arrived at the onsen. The water was wonderful, hot, but not too hot and ofcourse I got to take a nice “shower” before I got in. The reason I put shower in quotes is that you don’t really shower. You wash yourself off… but basically there is a shower head that you try to get your entire body wet with and then soap yourself.. and then wash the soap off… only then is it acceptable to go in the onsen. And it was worth it. Oh was it.
• Attempting to get back
o When I left the onsen unfortunately the bus back to Yudanaka (where I’m staying in Nagano) was not there… it wouldn’t come for another 45 minutes… I spent that time talking to a man in broken Japanese about where I was from and which university I went to. Previously I had attempting to find out about an earlier bus from a woman, but she found out that there wasn’t one. I got by. Finally when the bus came and I felt that I would die of starvation I arrived back in Yudanaka. I decided that first thing first I would have to have a drink and lo and behold by the time I had finished my “pocket juice stand” (a mango flavored drink w/ a hint of orange) I wasn’t as hungry. I think though that lunch would be a good idea… and thus I end this entry for now.
• Lunch and later
o I had a simple lunch of tamago donbiri (egg something), but getting this was trickier than I imagined. I walked into town and went into the restaurant but I couldn’t completely read the menu so I talked in broken Japanese until I heard something that sounded good. It worked perfectly and it only cost 600 yen… yay. I think I’ve finally broken out of my jet lag cyle, because after my 4 hour nap following lunch I felt great. At 9:00 I headed to dinner at a sushi place I had spotted earlier… which was well worth the walk. The sushi was amazing and I was next to two drunk salarymen who kept on refilling my glass with sake…hilarious. In English/Japanese we managed to have an amazing conversation, which I really don’t remember and concrete parts of. Yet, in the end the man who made my sushi who also kept on getting his glass of sake refilled presented me with a fan and a grasshopper he had made out of grass. All in all a great night.
{ July 23, 2007 @ 5:54 am }
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{ Nagano }
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• Getting to Nagano
o I’m still on the Shinkansen as I type this, but the train stations aren’t as bad as I had originally thought they would be. The only tricky part of the day so far was getting the rail pass which was inconvenient because the office opened at 9:30 and I happened to wake up at about 5:30… thus, boredom ensued for a bit, but mostly I just explored Ikebukuro, impressed a few Japanese girls with my lack of Japanese, and finally boarded the train to Ooyama. During the morning though I came up with many things that I noticed which were amusing/interesting/so much better than the US about Tokyo. Using my “oh so cute mini pigs” notebook, I started writing them down at this little café that I went into near my hotel. The list went on and on, but I think I’m going to make an entry for the list in its entirety, so I’m going to list a few of the important discoveries now. Japanese Salary men… these are men who are in there 30s, 40s, etc have CUTE cell phone charms, often more than one. I guess I should have seen it coming, but it still was hilarious. On the topic of cell phones, having one cell phone is so passé. Most people have 2 or more. Hiromi had 3… each of them have their own email address, do internet, banking, and the list goes on. Summed up: Japan owns the US… we are nothing in comparison.
o I’ve arrived at the Ryokan… after getting a ride with a couple of cute Korean girls and taking a few pictures… and it’s beautiful. My room has a low table, a futon, green tea, and it’s rather huge for the price I’m playing. Also…there is a hot spring in the ryokan. How do they get away with that… I’m looking over the details about the hotel and I’m about to head out to lunch.. I’ve been in Japan for two days, but I’ve hardly eaten anything… must be the hot weather leads you to drink more than eat. Life is good, nothing more to say for now.
• Nagano
o First thing… the hotsprings at the ryokan are wonderful. It’s Japanese style so first you wash yourself with soap and water and then you immerse yourself in the bath w/ no clothes. I didn’t run into the awkward situation of some random guy coming into the room, but it felt wonderful. The tension in your limbs just melts away.
o The guy who owns the ryokan is rather kind. He informed me of a festival tonight and has been really helpful with finding food around the town and all such things. Once I’m able to post pictures, this will be great, because my choice of food this evening was rather interesting. I went to the festival, which was definitely worth it. There was a beautiful woman who was singing in the middle of a square and a group of drunk salary men kept on alternating who would come up after each song to give her flowers; hilarious. I had planned on watching the festival and having sushi afterwards at a place that I had visited earlier, but I didn’t get around to it. I was walking around and looking at food and since I was thinking of having dinner later I just got a kirin beer, yet I was in for a treat. The stall I was next to was selling roasted (maybe) bees… yeah… and they gave me one for free. So, my dinner consisted of one beer, one bee… tasty and crunchy. I also got a free chicken thing and some cotton candy (I didn’t eat much of that)… Being from the US just means you get lots of free food… not complaining. Also, the owner of the ryokan gave me some money (well… money for the festival… not real money) and since there wasn’t much to buy I just picked up some Japanese candy. It’s doubtful that I’ll have much of it, but I plan to give it to friends etc. I’m exhausted and it’s not even 10:00… well, I’ll wake up tomorrow at 8:00 so that I can get a ride over to the monkey park…
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