A month in Japan

• 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.

• 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…