Japan!

Ohayo gozaimasu! I just spent an amazing 5 days in Japan. It was our first foreign port and I’m quite thankful for that actually, because it is the most expensive country on our itinerary. I won’t have to cry every time I purchase something in the countries to follow. Haha nah but Japan was great! And I absolutely loved seeing my old friends from Gonzaga : Misaki, Miki, Nohara, Sakiko, and Takahiro! They were great tour guides and teachers, and I miss them so much already! I cant remember if I already wrote about Tokyo, so I will start from there.

Day 1- Yokohama – Slept at Misaki’s house, Japanese style. The mats they sleep on are actually really comfortable! I like sleeping on the floor.

Day 2- Tokyo – Rachel, Caitlyn, Misaki, Nohara, Miki, and I took the JR train to Tokyo! Soon as we got there we searched for the Imperial Palace (none of the Japanese girls had been there either! Haha.) We lucked out.. It was right next to the train station. So we walked that way, and unfortunately found out that we can’t actually see the palace itself but we could walk around the Palace gardens. We took our time doing that. It was beautiful! There were beautiful statues, and all kinds of trees. The street/walkway was huge. It was a very roomy walk. Parts of the garden are on hills, so there were beautifully-made stone walls that were maybe 15 to 20 feet tall lining the pathway. After we walked around in the garden for a while, we decided food sounded good, so we found this tucked away restaurant (I really like the restaurant set ups in Japan. They are stacked on top of each other. Like.. 2^nd floor could have one restaurant, and the 3^rd will have a different restaurant.) It was on the 2^nd floor. And it was nice because outside of the restaurant (downstairs) there was a little viewing station (all the food was made of clay in the viewing station.) So, we could look to see what we wanted to order before we went inside! It was great because we didn’t have to play a guessing game when we got the menu. So I had a bowl of rice with sliced pork on it and a fried egg on top of that. It was really yum. And an adventure trying to eat it with chopsticks. (I’m actually pretty good at using chopsticks now though.) All meals in Japan come with a small bowl of broth soup. And you don’t use a spoon to eat it. You just drink it out of the bowl! It was a delight. Oh! And I tried the fried fish that Rachel ordered. . It wasn’t my favorite but I didn’t absolutely hate it I guess. After din din we walked along this street that is really popular among young adults. We looked in a couple shops that sell pictures and posters of famous Japanese singers. It was fun looking at all of them. The walls were completely covered with pictures you could buy. Rachel bought one of some cute Japanese boy from a tv show that she watches. : ) I was surprises to see how packed those little shops were. Anyway So, we mainly just walked around Tokyo a lot. We went to Shubuyo, where that huge screen is on the building. It’s the one street in Tokyo that everybody knows from movies. That street IS Tokyo.  And I saw some Visual Kai. Do me a favor: Go to google images and type in “Visual Kai in Japan.”   -Accommodations: We ended up staying at an internet café in central Tokyo. It was quite the experience. I couldn’t believe how many business men were sleeping there. And people were up at all hours of the night. The café was about 21 dollars total. But we had to pay in intervals. We had to wake up at 3 in the morning to go pay the receptionist again. It was ridiculous, but I didn’t sleep a whole lot because I was busy trying to figure out plans for the following day. But basically the set for the net café was: They put you in a small cubicle with a TV and a computer and a recliner. Drinks were free. There were 3 huge vending machines filled with hot Tea, Coffee, Juice, Water, and even hot soup. It was really great. And they had showers downstairs. The Net café was on the 2^nd floor. Anyway, there were dozens of rows of Anime movies and shows! It was insane! I actually didn’t watch any, but I just found it to be awesome. The only downer about it was that it was kind of loud. There was a couple in the cubicle next to mine that just would not shut up. They talked all night. They were speaking English. I think that’s why I couldn’t fall asleep. If it had been Japanese people talking I would have been able to sleep so fast, but I just had to listen to this couple talk about the most retarded things. Anyway, I slept about 3 hours that night. I guess I can’t really blame that couple entirely though. I spent a lot of the night chatting with Taka online. He was helping me figure out our plans for day 3! Anyway, we had to say goodbye to Misaki and Miki and Nohara at the internet café! It was sad! They were so much to hang out with!

Day 3- Hakone and some more Tokyo – We had to leave the internet café at 6am because we didn’t want to pay for anymore time. The only thing that was open at that hour was the 24 hour McDonalds a couple blocks down, so we went there and had some coffee. It was jam packed.. I couldn’t believe it. I learned in my foods class that McDonalds has become a part of the Japanese culture. Everybody absolutely loves to go there, even if it’s just to hang out and work on homework or something. There were actually people sleeping at the booths in there. Which was a really good idea.. Its free!! I really like how the restaurants like McDonalds are set up too! You have to order from a window outside or right inside an open door on the bottom floor and then the sitting area is upstairs. Usually there were 4 floors to each restaurant. (Top floor for smokers.) Each floor has a little tiny sitting area. Only about 10 to 15 people can sit in there, and all the booths in there are facing out the window. So it’s like every seat has a view of the city. Anyway, we then took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to a town called Hakone. Its known for its hiking and hot springs. Unfortunately it was pouring the day we decided to go, so we didn’t do too much hiking. We got off the subway at some random village area and hiked down the streets towards the trees. There were cute cafes and other stores lining a tiny street a ways from the station, so we walked through there for a little bit. We actually tried to go find some good hiking spots but hit a dead end right next to the small highway, but I found some stairs that go down into the trees and we got really curious and decided to follow them. So we followed them for a while. We were passing houses randomly. We came up to a little entrée way with red drapes. We had no idea what the drapes said because it was strictly in Japanese, but we went through these drapes anyway because we wanted to discover what was at the bottom of the stairs. We came up to a small wooden building and went inside. It was a hot spring bath spot! We looked at each other with big grins on our faces and quickly paid the lady at the desk. It was such a good experience! Rachel, Caitlyn and I kind of had a huge giggle fest in the locker room while undressing. And there we were standing butt naked in the locker room with a couple of older butt naked women. We actually made friends with one of the naked ladies at the hot springs. She was really nice. She helped us figure out what to do. We basically showed up to the hot springs totally confused on how to bathe in the hot springs, so she helped us! Haha. The hot springs were great! There was a series of them. We had to work our way to the hottest hot spring. By the time we got there my toes and fingers were completely shriveled.  It was so much fun though. At one point the three of us were sitting right next to each other in one of the hot springs.. butt naked. And I looked at the girls and was like “Hey guys. . guess what.. we are naked.. in Japan. We’re all sitting naked next to each other.” It was the funniest thing. We are definitely close friends now. Haha  After our glorious hot springs experience we went upstairs to get our backpacks out of the lockers, and we noticed there were some people napping in this room right next to the lockers. So we said what the heck let’s take a quick power nap, and grabbed some pillows, laid them across the floor and took a glorious nap with everyone. We then made the hike back up the stairs to the main street and back to the cable car. We met up with Takahiro (he went to Gonzaga my freshman year) at Ordawara train station! I didn’t recognize him without his fro. Haha He was there right when we got off the train and then we quickly hopped on the train across the track. It was a good 20 to 30 minute ride in that train to his family’s business. It was great catching up with him! We told him all about our trip so far and what we’re doing next and everything. Rachel and Caitlyn absolutely loved Taka. He was so great to us. Anyway, so we got off at his station and it was raining cats and dogs, so Taka made us run. Haha It was so much fun. I was holding hands with Rachel! We ran like two blocks in the rain and the whole time Taka was like “WE MUST SURVIVE!!!” On the train we were talking about him learning English so well at Gonzaga, and he was telling us it was all about survival. And us girls have been attempting to speak Japanese, so basically Taka was telling us that our mission on this trip is Survival. It became a big joke that would come up randomly in our conversations throughout the night. It was great. Ok so we rain through the rain.. stopped by Taka’s parents’ business. They were just painting the walls. His dad was getting ready to open a hearing aid company. So we met everyone there at the business. They were really nice and spoke zero English. Haha. Taka and his cute mom then drove us back to their house. And of course we ran to their car, which was a block away. Taka is a crazy driver. It was very weird driving on the left side of the road. And the steering wheel being on the other side of the car. I felt like I was driving. Taka’s house is really cute and the perfect size. The kitchen, shower, and parents’ bedroom was downstairs and there were 2 bedrooms, a storage room, and a bathroom upstairs. It was a really comfy house. Oh! Lets talk about the Japanese toilets: First of all.. They are heated! Haha The toilet seats are always warm. So it feels like somebody was sitting there a while right before you sat there. Haha. Its so funny. Second: There is usually a remote connected to the right side of the toilet (or a wireless remote) with all kinds of buttons on it. There is a “princess” button which only makes a flushing noise really loud.. It doesn’t actually flush. And there is a button to make water squirt at your butt. I didn’t even push it because I was scared. But Caitlyn played with the buttons and figured out what they meant. She also couldn’t figure out how to turn it off though. Haha. The toilet in Taka’s house had a built-in sink. The sink was right on top of the toilet and it would turn on as soon as you flushed the toilet. It was an adventure for sure. The toilets at the mall played waterfall sounds when you sat on the toilet. I don’t know if its like a courtesy thing or just to help you pee faster. But it made me laugh. A lot of public bathrooms like at the train station or at the park have squat toilets. It’s just a whole in the ground, so it’s a work out each time you go to the bathroom. It was fun. Ok so anyway, after we freshened up at Taka’s, he took us to “Tokyo but not”. We called it that the entire time. Its not like central Tokyo, but it looks like a mini version of Shabuya. So we hung out there for a little bit and actually met up with one of Taka’s friends. His name is Miguel and he is Peruvian. So he spoke Spanish and Japanese. It was a lot of fun practicing Spanish with him. I was surprised at how well my Spanish still was. It was funny though because Taka doesn’t speak Spanish. He only speaks English and Japanese. So Miguel and Taka would talk in Japanese. Taka and us girls would talk in English. And then Miguel would talk to us girls in Spanish. Haha It was a crazy triangle. We ran to dinner at this awesome Japanese BBQ place. I liked this BBQ style. The waiter put a big bucket of hot coals and fire right on the table in front of us, and they brought us a plate of raw pork and beef. Miguel and Taka showed us how to BBQ it, and made us try everything. We later found out that we were eating Cow tongue (which was actually really good, but I couldn’t help but picture me chewing on a cow’s tongue, So I didn’t eat very much of that. It was a good experience though.)  and pig organs. Yeah it took me like 10 minutes to chew through the pig organs. It wasn’t bad though. It tasted great but the chewy part made me want to gag a little bit. Haha. Anyway, I tried Japanese beer! It was really good! Almost as good as German beer I must say.  The entire time at the restaurant we were speaking either English or Spanish. (Mainly Spanish actually) It was so confusing when the waiter came to refill our drinks we accidently said “gracias” instead of “arigato.” It was a mess. After the restaurant we ran back to the car in the rain, and made the long drive back to Taka’s house. We weren’t there long before we went to a hidden bar. It was a fun walk. Taka gave each of us umbrellas so we wouldn’t have to run there! The bar was like on the 3^rd floor of some random building. The door was half the size of a normal door. We had to duck down to enter. Especially Rachel.. She’s the tallest one of the group. We were the only ones at the bar, it was really nice. I tried Sake for the first time, and I really liked it! It had a little wine taste too it, but it was a little stronger and less grapey. The bartender gave me a huge jar of it though! There was no way I could have finished it by myself. The bartender was really great though. He kept bringing out snacks for us. Drinks always come with snacks at the bars apparently. He brought out shrimp flavored chips. They were alright. I wasn’t a huge fan though. We weren’t at the bar for very long, because Rachel had a bad cold and we needed to get her to bed. I was really exhausted too! It was a tiring day! So we trekked back to Taka’s house. Oh my gosh Taka’s mom is the cutest lady ever! She’s a little bit shorter than I am, and really skinny! She came up to our room to ask us what we would want for breakfast the following day. She started naming all of these things for us to eat. She then said something really fast in Japanese and then would say Yogurt! (or Eggs or bread or whatever) and then raise her hand really high. So we would all imitate her and then laugh really hard. I was crying I was laughing so hard. She loved hugs too! And she joked around a lot. She was great. Anyway, we slept Japanese style again! It was super comfy. As soon as I hit the pillow I was out!