The last two days were fairly uneventful. I said goodby to my very drunk German friend at night, and to my suprise found the uw girl awake at 7am eating breakfast. I meat Kate's parents and we went to Nara together. It was an interesting trip because I didn't have anything planned and I didn't know Nara at all. We did see the biggest Buddha in Japan and wandered around the nara national museum for a while. We meat up with Michael and had lunch. An uninteresting Oyakudonburi. On the way to the station I finally found some Mellon fanta for Simon. Sadly I also lost the walking stick that I climbed Mt.Fuji with. The stick would have been hard to carry back so I guess its alright.
At night I slept in Michaels home stay family's house. Its in a small town called Komada. About an hour by train outside of Kyoto. The house, or actually houses, there were 2 if them, were very nice. Apparently a lot of the tables inside could be national treasures of in a museum somewhere.
The family was great. The dad worked selling medical computer equipment to hospitals. He didn't talk much, but apparently was very funny when he did. I couldn't really understand him. The mom was great. She spoke English, but didn't like to. As a result I could practice my Japanese, but when I didn't know how to say something I could switch back into English for help. There was also a 26 year old sister, who looked like she was 20. Apparently she worked in an office somewhere. I learned from another Japanese girl that I meat with Mathias named Iya that those girls are called OL or office lady.
It was really cool to be forced to speak Japanese. I had a lot of trouble understanding, but I learned a lot very quickly and remembered a lot of my old sentence structures. It had been a very long day of trekking about so I got really tired and went to bed early.
The final day of my trip was super low key. We woke up late had breakfast and were planning on going to a flee market at a Temple. However Michael decided he wanted to go to a get to know you party for Doshida students. I gladly followed him. The kids I met singing Karaoke were really cool, so I figured the rest would be as well. I wasn't disipointed in that regard. However it wasn't exatly the way I wanted to spend my last day. We just played language games all day. At night I went shopping for some final gifts to bring back to the states. It took a bit longer than expected. \
I finally got back to my house at 7:30ish after michael had finished all him homework due on Monday. We had dinner and talked for a bit. It turned out the dad had gone to Seoul on business trips a few times. We chatted about that for a bit, then I decided it would be a good idea to pack.
On my way to packing I got a bit sidetracked my Keyan and Lars asking for a 6 hour itinerary to see all of Seoul. I quickly wrote one up for them and went back to packing. Then went to bed.
The only notable thing to happen today is the fact that my backpack went from being regular sized to oversized and that I was .5kg off having to pay an extra 100$ for my bags. Dogged a bullet there :)
Anyway I'll be back in the states soon so unless I think of more things to write about this will be my last entry. I'll probably post some reflections in the next few days, but other than that this is it. Good By.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Oh the people you'll meet...
The day of crazyness.
Today started out last night. I got into my hostel after a day of traveling and meet one of my roommates. A crazy German guy named Wolfgang, just like Mozart. He was in the country studying supply chain engineering and economics or something like that. He asked me for help planning out a nice list of things to see the next day. I told him some temples and went to sleep.
Just a note, don't eat at Big Boy in Japan. Their impression of Hamburgers sucks.
The next day I woke up early to go meet Tomo. I threw on a UW shirt and went to catch the bus. At the bus stop I ran into another UW student (my 3rd random run in on this trip). It turned out that Wolfgang and the girl from UW were getting on the same bus. I was kind of having a conversation with both of them, then the bus came. The last I saw of those two Wolfgang was just leaning over to introduce him self to the girl.
I went and meat Tomo at the train station after 40min of transit. We precoded to go a crazy amount of temples. Starting at sanjyusan something or other moving which had a thousand unique statues of Kannon.
Then we went to Kiomizudera. There were like 15 different places you could wish in that temple. The first was a stone that you had to walk to in the dark. It was pitch black and then there was just this stone in front of you. You wish on it and then move on. It was really cool. I'm rarely in a completely dark area. Next Tomo asked me if I had a girlfriend. I thought it was a bit of a strange question, but went along with it. Apparently there are these two stones where if you walk between them with your eyes closed you'll be granted happiness in future relationships. I managed to make it all the way across. Who knows that that means. The coolest part of the temple by far was the main shrine. We got really really lucky. Apparently the shrine is only open once every 25 years. There was an image of Kannon inside and a rope that was linked to it so you could shake hands with Kannon. From there it was the standard Kiomizudera temple sightseeing.
Tomo proceeded to take me on a crazy tour of West Kyoto where we saw 4 temples in a half hour. I totally forget the names of all of them. We also had a Japanese desert at a famous desert place called hageshi I think. It was very good. There were 3 different types of Mochi balls that you could eat. Finally we made it to Ginkakuji. The silver pavilion. It was just as nice as I remembered and this time I got lots of pictures.
Finally we went to the Gion district where the Geisha or the Geiko in Kansai-ben are known to be. I didn't see any, but Tomo took me to a very nice Herring Soba reastraunt. It was the first really good Japanese food I'd had in a while sadly. Curses crazy eating schedule.
As we were heading back to Kyoto Station on the subway I ran into Michael and his friends. It was a great considioince. I quickly said goodby to Tomo, thanked him for an amazing day gave him is Omeyage and meat the first College aged kids that I've really liked in a month. About 14 of us went to go sing karaoke. It was great fun. After that we went to eat some Japanese Korean food. It wasn't really Korean, but it was good anyway. One of the girls in the program has a sister that goes to the UW as well. Hopefully I'll be able to meet her. Shes just a freshman this year.
On my way home the buses stopped running. I got off a Kinkakuji and had to walk from there. I ended up walking the wrong way. Thank god I could speak a bit of Japanese. I asked a guy in a 7-11 for directions. It worked out well. I got home at 12:17 about 15 min after all the doors in my hostel were locked. Thankfully my German friend Wolfgang was right inside. Right inside the front door with 2 empty bottles of Sake, a half empty bottle of Whiskey and a very drunk girl from the UW lying on the couch. It was the best snapshot of a relationship that I've ever seen.
With that I went to bed.
Today started out last night. I got into my hostel after a day of traveling and meet one of my roommates. A crazy German guy named Wolfgang, just like Mozart. He was in the country studying supply chain engineering and economics or something like that. He asked me for help planning out a nice list of things to see the next day. I told him some temples and went to sleep.
Just a note, don't eat at Big Boy in Japan. Their impression of Hamburgers sucks.
The next day I woke up early to go meet Tomo. I threw on a UW shirt and went to catch the bus. At the bus stop I ran into another UW student (my 3rd random run in on this trip). It turned out that Wolfgang and the girl from UW were getting on the same bus. I was kind of having a conversation with both of them, then the bus came. The last I saw of those two Wolfgang was just leaning over to introduce him self to the girl.
I went and meat Tomo at the train station after 40min of transit. We precoded to go a crazy amount of temples. Starting at sanjyusan something or other moving which had a thousand unique statues of Kannon.
Then we went to Kiomizudera. There were like 15 different places you could wish in that temple. The first was a stone that you had to walk to in the dark. It was pitch black and then there was just this stone in front of you. You wish on it and then move on. It was really cool. I'm rarely in a completely dark area. Next Tomo asked me if I had a girlfriend. I thought it was a bit of a strange question, but went along with it. Apparently there are these two stones where if you walk between them with your eyes closed you'll be granted happiness in future relationships. I managed to make it all the way across. Who knows that that means. The coolest part of the temple by far was the main shrine. We got really really lucky. Apparently the shrine is only open once every 25 years. There was an image of Kannon inside and a rope that was linked to it so you could shake hands with Kannon. From there it was the standard Kiomizudera temple sightseeing.
Tomo proceeded to take me on a crazy tour of West Kyoto where we saw 4 temples in a half hour. I totally forget the names of all of them. We also had a Japanese desert at a famous desert place called hageshi I think. It was very good. There were 3 different types of Mochi balls that you could eat. Finally we made it to Ginkakuji. The silver pavilion. It was just as nice as I remembered and this time I got lots of pictures.
Finally we went to the Gion district where the Geisha or the Geiko in Kansai-ben are known to be. I didn't see any, but Tomo took me to a very nice Herring Soba reastraunt. It was the first really good Japanese food I'd had in a while sadly. Curses crazy eating schedule.
As we were heading back to Kyoto Station on the subway I ran into Michael and his friends. It was a great considioince. I quickly said goodby to Tomo, thanked him for an amazing day gave him is Omeyage and meat the first College aged kids that I've really liked in a month. About 14 of us went to go sing karaoke. It was great fun. After that we went to eat some Japanese Korean food. It wasn't really Korean, but it was good anyway. One of the girls in the program has a sister that goes to the UW as well. Hopefully I'll be able to meet her. Shes just a freshman this year.
On my way home the buses stopped running. I got off a Kinkakuji and had to walk from there. I ended up walking the wrong way. Thank god I could speak a bit of Japanese. I asked a guy in a 7-11 for directions. It worked out well. I got home at 12:17 about 15 min after all the doors in my hostel were locked. Thankfully my German friend Wolfgang was right inside. Right inside the front door with 2 empty bottles of Sake, a half empty bottle of Whiskey and a very drunk girl from the UW lying on the couch. It was the best snapshot of a relationship that I've ever seen.
With that I went to bed.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Shoot THEN move
For some reason that quote comes to mind when talking about today. It was basically a day of travel, but I learned a very important lesson about traveling that I thought I knew, but just needed to try out anyway. Never travel in the middle of the day.
The Kawaguchiko youth hostel although very nice had really shitty beds. As a result I woke up around 9:00ish even though I was still sore and tired. I fell in with Kyle (yesterdays not Jessy guy) and Jessy and we decided to take the train to Kyoto. We left at 12 and got in at 6. Now theres not a lot I can do in Kyoto. I should have stayed in Kawaguchiko for a bit longer, even if it was raining. Oh speaking of that no Fujikyu Highlands due to the rain either. Damn rain...
Well thats about it, I did some reflecting today and forgot all the life lessons I'd figured out. Oh well, I've got more time on the trains in the future. It looks like my crazy day of going from Kyoto to Narita to Seattle will work out as well. I just have to get up at like 7:00 in the morning. Not even that big of a deal.
Well tomorrow I'm going to meet Tomo and possibly see Michael it looks like it will be a good day.
The Kawaguchiko youth hostel although very nice had really shitty beds. As a result I woke up around 9:00ish even though I was still sore and tired. I fell in with Kyle (yesterdays not Jessy guy) and Jessy and we decided to take the train to Kyoto. We left at 12 and got in at 6. Now theres not a lot I can do in Kyoto. I should have stayed in Kawaguchiko for a bit longer, even if it was raining. Oh speaking of that no Fujikyu Highlands due to the rain either. Damn rain...
Well thats about it, I did some reflecting today and forgot all the life lessons I'd figured out. Oh well, I've got more time on the trains in the future. It looks like my crazy day of going from Kyoto to Narita to Seattle will work out as well. I just have to get up at like 7:00 in the morning. Not even that big of a deal.
Well tomorrow I'm going to meet Tomo and possibly see Michael it looks like it will be a good day.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
A wise man climbs Mt.Fuji once, a fool climbs twice
Wow, I'd have to rank today as the third or fourth hardest day in my life. The only things above it were swimming 80x100 on the 1:20 when I was 17, swimming 20x100 sprint on the 1:30 when I was in 8th grade and climbing up high divide in the middle of summer. If it was in better shape climbing would have been a snap. However I haven't been in climbing shape for the last 4 years. I climbed anyway...
The day started out well enough. I hooked up with two brother from Illinois named Jessy and Shawn. They were really cool guys. Jessy works for video game company as an animator and Shawn has his masters in Economics and works in a pet store :). They were great climbing partners. We all kept up with each other really well. Shawn way almost always head because he had done track in College, but I was close behind most of the time.
We got to the Mountain at 10:30am. On the way up I talked to a crazy Russian American guy who has been in Japan for 2 years just hanging out on his parents money. He originally wanted to learn Japanese, but got kicked out of school by the Yakuza headmaster because he was Russian. It sounded like he had just wandered East Asia ever sense. The night before he tried to climb all the way up Mt.Fuji but got lost near the base and ended up spending 10 hours in the woods at night. He got 2 hours of sleep and went at it again. As I said crazy.
We got started right a way and had easy going for a while. At some point in time it got really hard. Thats when I found out the people I was hiking with thought this way a day hike. One of them didn't have a coat, neither of them had ponchos or enough water. Thankfully I had extra water, but they had to buy the ponchos for a steep price on the Mountain.
We continued hiking. For 4 hours, I think the final count was ~1000m in 6km. Just slightly hard. We had to scamble over rocks for more than half the time. It didn't help that the trail was basically closed down due to the Mountain being out of season. At the 7.5th station we realized we had a choice. Either climb the Mountain all the way or make the last bus back. We choose to go to the top. What followed was pure elevation gain for the next 3 hours (we had already hiked for one).
We finally made it to the top. The view was pretty amazing. Although it was mostly clouds. I got some pictures, not enough because I could barely think. You can get altitude sickness at 3776m and I think I did a bit. At least I felt a little hazy. Shawn and I hiked to the real summit, but Jessy was feeling sick enough that he threw up and stayed behind. The view worth it only to say that we've been to the top of Fuji. Up at the top we ran into this 60 year old man who said he hiked Mt.Fuji every week. Apparently he was trying to get used to altitude sickness so he could climb the Himalayas. He was a beast. We got to the top around 3ish, and the hike around the crater took about an hour. When we got back to Jessy he was shivering. Not good. We gave him the rest of the water, made him put on a rain poncho and we started walking. He warmed up pretty quickly, but I had a bit of a scare.
The walk down was quick, but scary. Basically you slide all the way down on loose gravel. Thats right slide 6km down. We also had to race against the daylight. We had a flashlight, but neither Jessy or Shawn had real cold weather gear and I realized I forgot my jacket at the hostel. I could have sworn I packed it. I gave us until 6 before the sun went out. I was about right. It was at 6:30. Thankfully at that point we were far enough down the mountian that it was actually getting warm again. We only had to walk about .75km in the dark, over a mostly flat surface.
Finally we got to the parking lot knowing full well the bus had left about 3 hours ago. (It was about 7 at the time). I checked my phone, and to my surprise I couldn't get reception. Everywhere else on the mountain I could, even the summit. Thankfully these two guys from Tokyo also had come down at the same time. The 5 of us split a cab down the mountain. I think they were more than happy to split the fare 5 ways. Each of us only ended up paying 20$. Not that bad for an 45min long cab ride.
Anyhow I'm dead tired now. I think its time to chill in an Onsen and sleep early.
The day started out well enough. I hooked up with two brother from Illinois named Jessy and Shawn. They were really cool guys. Jessy works for video game company as an animator and Shawn has his masters in Economics and works in a pet store :). They were great climbing partners. We all kept up with each other really well. Shawn way almost always head because he had done track in College, but I was close behind most of the time.
We got to the Mountain at 10:30am. On the way up I talked to a crazy Russian American guy who has been in Japan for 2 years just hanging out on his parents money. He originally wanted to learn Japanese, but got kicked out of school by the Yakuza headmaster because he was Russian. It sounded like he had just wandered East Asia ever sense. The night before he tried to climb all the way up Mt.Fuji but got lost near the base and ended up spending 10 hours in the woods at night. He got 2 hours of sleep and went at it again. As I said crazy.
We got started right a way and had easy going for a while. At some point in time it got really hard. Thats when I found out the people I was hiking with thought this way a day hike. One of them didn't have a coat, neither of them had ponchos or enough water. Thankfully I had extra water, but they had to buy the ponchos for a steep price on the Mountain.
We continued hiking. For 4 hours, I think the final count was ~1000m in 6km. Just slightly hard. We had to scamble over rocks for more than half the time. It didn't help that the trail was basically closed down due to the Mountain being out of season. At the 7.5th station we realized we had a choice. Either climb the Mountain all the way or make the last bus back. We choose to go to the top. What followed was pure elevation gain for the next 3 hours (we had already hiked for one).
We finally made it to the top. The view was pretty amazing. Although it was mostly clouds. I got some pictures, not enough because I could barely think. You can get altitude sickness at 3776m and I think I did a bit. At least I felt a little hazy. Shawn and I hiked to the real summit, but Jessy was feeling sick enough that he threw up and stayed behind. The view worth it only to say that we've been to the top of Fuji. Up at the top we ran into this 60 year old man who said he hiked Mt.Fuji every week. Apparently he was trying to get used to altitude sickness so he could climb the Himalayas. He was a beast. We got to the top around 3ish, and the hike around the crater took about an hour. When we got back to Jessy he was shivering. Not good. We gave him the rest of the water, made him put on a rain poncho and we started walking. He warmed up pretty quickly, but I had a bit of a scare.
The walk down was quick, but scary. Basically you slide all the way down on loose gravel. Thats right slide 6km down. We also had to race against the daylight. We had a flashlight, but neither Jessy or Shawn had real cold weather gear and I realized I forgot my jacket at the hostel. I could have sworn I packed it. I gave us until 6 before the sun went out. I was about right. It was at 6:30. Thankfully at that point we were far enough down the mountian that it was actually getting warm again. We only had to walk about .75km in the dark, over a mostly flat surface.
Finally we got to the parking lot knowing full well the bus had left about 3 hours ago. (It was about 7 at the time). I checked my phone, and to my surprise I couldn't get reception. Everywhere else on the mountain I could, even the summit. Thankfully these two guys from Tokyo also had come down at the same time. The 5 of us split a cab down the mountain. I think they were more than happy to split the fare 5 ways. Each of us only ended up paying 20$. Not that bad for an 45min long cab ride.
Anyhow I'm dead tired now. I think its time to chill in an Onsen and sleep early.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Mt. Fuji
Is barely visible 20km from its base. Other than that the Fuji-Kyu is amazing. I'm staying in a town called Kawaguchiko which is the base camp for a lot of hikers. Fuji-san is about a 7-8 hour climb from the 5th station about half way up the mountain. I think I'm going to do it tomorrow. I'm actually kind of disappointed, I wish I had one more day here. Theres a lot of really cool things around the base of the mountain that I want to see, but don't have the time for. After hiking I might try to hit up some of the closer spots, or maybe see them before heading off to Fuji-Kyu Highlands on Thursday.
Anyhow enough about planning. Today was actually kind of boring. I started out in Tokyo checking out of my hostel at 9:00 sharp. I wanted to go see the imperial palace and do one more round of shopping in Harajyuku. There was a coat that I saw that I wanted, but it was 150$. I thought it was to much when I first saw it, but I realized if I was going to climb Mt.Fuji it would be nice to have a light outer shell.
As I was walking to the subway station I realized how much junk I was carrying with me. Then I realized what time it was, and decided it wasn't the best decission in my life to start my travels with a giant backpack and a secondary backpack smack dab in the middle of Tokyo rush how in the busiest station in the world. Thankfully the Odakyu line, the one from my place to Shinjyuku wasn't that full. I somehow managed to fit my backpack into a locker without knocking over to many Japanese people as well. After that I just missed one train on the Yamanote line (one of the most popular lines) because it was to full before I managed to get on a nice semi empty train.
From there I went to Tokyo station to go see the Imperial Palace. To be honest it wasn't all that impressive. Granted it was still kind of raining at the time, but there wasn't much to see. I think it was templed out after visiting Nikko yesterday and so some green space in the center of downtown Tokyo didn't to much for me. I got some pictues, but only went to 2 of the four famous sights there. The other two were a gate and a statue. Neither of which I was that interested in.
Next up I wandered around Harajyuku for a bit trying to find the coat store. Thankfully I couldn't find it. 150$ is way to much to pay for a coat, even a fairly nice one.
That basically concluded my day. I took a very long train ride from Shinjyuku to Kawaguchiko, and bummed around here from 6 to now. I experienced my first real Onsen,which was cool but not amazing. There were like 6 different pools, but it was all indoors and felt very manufactured. The Sauna was fun though. Overall I'm glad I did it even though it wasn't amazing. Dinner was amazing though. It was the first meal I've had here that was filling. Super nice. Anyhow I'm going to get to bed early. I've got a big day tomorrow. I hope my feet are up for it.
Anyhow enough about planning. Today was actually kind of boring. I started out in Tokyo checking out of my hostel at 9:00 sharp. I wanted to go see the imperial palace and do one more round of shopping in Harajyuku. There was a coat that I saw that I wanted, but it was 150$. I thought it was to much when I first saw it, but I realized if I was going to climb Mt.Fuji it would be nice to have a light outer shell.
As I was walking to the subway station I realized how much junk I was carrying with me. Then I realized what time it was, and decided it wasn't the best decission in my life to start my travels with a giant backpack and a secondary backpack smack dab in the middle of Tokyo rush how in the busiest station in the world. Thankfully the Odakyu line, the one from my place to Shinjyuku wasn't that full. I somehow managed to fit my backpack into a locker without knocking over to many Japanese people as well. After that I just missed one train on the Yamanote line (one of the most popular lines) because it was to full before I managed to get on a nice semi empty train.
From there I went to Tokyo station to go see the Imperial Palace. To be honest it wasn't all that impressive. Granted it was still kind of raining at the time, but there wasn't much to see. I think it was templed out after visiting Nikko yesterday and so some green space in the center of downtown Tokyo didn't to much for me. I got some pictues, but only went to 2 of the four famous sights there. The other two were a gate and a statue. Neither of which I was that interested in.
Next up I wandered around Harajyuku for a bit trying to find the coat store. Thankfully I couldn't find it. 150$ is way to much to pay for a coat, even a fairly nice one.
That basically concluded my day. I took a very long train ride from Shinjyuku to Kawaguchiko, and bummed around here from 6 to now. I experienced my first real Onsen,which was cool but not amazing. There were like 6 different pools, but it was all indoors and felt very manufactured. The Sauna was fun though. Overall I'm glad I did it even though it wasn't amazing. Dinner was amazing though. It was the first meal I've had here that was filling. Super nice. Anyhow I'm going to get to bed early. I've got a big day tomorrow. I hope my feet are up for it.
Monday, September 15, 2008
First Day alone
Well today was my first real day alone. It was interesting. I got up at 9:00 and went to Nikko, a temple complex I thought was 40min outside of Tokyo. It turned out it was about 2 hours away. So much for planning. I took a very nice JR train there, and paid dearly for it. Although the seats were nice enough to nap in so it was totally worth it. When I got there I spent 20min walking up hill to the temples because all the buses were full. Today was a national holiday so everyone and their mother was out and about. The temples were nice, but without any English guides I couldn't really understand what was going on. I got some nice pictures though. I'll post those up on facebook later tonight. Sadly there wasn't any photography allowed in any of the cool places so I only got the outsides of lots of the buildings. Over all though I'd say it was worth the trip. It was a nice break from the city. It was great to see some of Japans natural areas. Although I guess I'll be seeing a lot of that for the next few days.
The on the way back I stopped off at the Gaman-Ga-Fuchi Abyss that Olga recommended. I totally see why she did. It was the perfect counterpoint to all the temples in Nikko. This was just a small place with lots of little Buddhas in a row. It was a nice end to the day.
The way back at that point got a bit interesting. As I was taking the 40min walk back to the train station I ran into a friendly Japanese school boy. We tried to talk in Japanese for a bit, but it didn't work out. He wanted to talk about baseball and the Mariners, which I can't understand when its talked about in English and when he was taking about some pitcher that I didn't know the name of with a very thick Japanese accent I just got lost. Nice guy though. Thankfully I ran into a bus headed for the station about 15min into my walk. I got to the station at 6 or 7ish. I forget exactly when now. I looked at the schedule and saw the next train wasn't for an hour. Dejected I went to go buy a ticket only to find out another train was leaving for the station I wanted to go to in 10min. I couldn't believe my good luck. I happily got on the train. One hour later I remembered something Ms. Alexander had told me when we were going to a school in between Kyoto and Osaka. “If want you can take a local train from Kyoto to Tokyo, it will just take you 16 hours”. Thats when I realized I had gotten on a limited express. One level faster than a local train. An hour and a half after that I arrived back in Tokyo. I've got to learn to plan better. Anyway that was about the day. Tomorrow is going to be spent in transit mostly. Although I'm going to try and visit the Imperial Palace, and maybe do one last shopping run to Harajyuku if I have the time. Possibly no blog updates for the next 2 days. I don't know the amenities in my next hostel.
The on the way back I stopped off at the Gaman-Ga-Fuchi Abyss that Olga recommended. I totally see why she did. It was the perfect counterpoint to all the temples in Nikko. This was just a small place with lots of little Buddhas in a row. It was a nice end to the day.
The way back at that point got a bit interesting. As I was taking the 40min walk back to the train station I ran into a friendly Japanese school boy. We tried to talk in Japanese for a bit, but it didn't work out. He wanted to talk about baseball and the Mariners, which I can't understand when its talked about in English and when he was taking about some pitcher that I didn't know the name of with a very thick Japanese accent I just got lost. Nice guy though. Thankfully I ran into a bus headed for the station about 15min into my walk. I got to the station at 6 or 7ish. I forget exactly when now. I looked at the schedule and saw the next train wasn't for an hour. Dejected I went to go buy a ticket only to find out another train was leaving for the station I wanted to go to in 10min. I couldn't believe my good luck. I happily got on the train. One hour later I remembered something Ms. Alexander had told me when we were going to a school in between Kyoto and Osaka. “If want you can take a local train from Kyoto to Tokyo, it will just take you 16 hours”. Thats when I realized I had gotten on a limited express. One level faster than a local train. An hour and a half after that I arrived back in Tokyo. I've got to learn to plan better. Anyway that was about the day. Tomorrow is going to be spent in transit mostly. Although I'm going to try and visit the Imperial Palace, and maybe do one last shopping run to Harajyuku if I have the time. Possibly no blog updates for the next 2 days. I don't know the amenities in my next hostel.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Gaijin Smash
Well I'm done with the program finally. Over all it was a lot of fun and I'd do it again. I need to really reflect and write about everything that I've learned here. Its a lot and not just about architecture.
The last day was really relaxed. Our presentations were at 2:00 so I went over to Harajyuku and Omotesando and did some shopping for things I didn't need. Then I ate at the same reastraunt that I ate at the first time I visited Harajyuku street back in 2005. It was a nice morning.
Presentations took 3 hours and just dragged on. Everyone did very well. I bombed mine by getting flustered at a messed up slide. Should have checked and prepped harder. Lesson learned I guess.
The night we had our final group dinner, Shabushabu. Also fun, we got some good pictures. After dinner it was time for Ageha the largest club in Asia. In short it sucked. Lots of techno, which I don't really know how to dance to and on top of that the people the people weren't very friendly and I couldn't really talk to them. On top of that the cover cost 40$, and half the people I went with I didn't really like. The fun part was getting Wey into the club when she forgot her ID. We ended up waiting in the losers line for like 15min while the Japanese bouncers freaked out about being polite. In the end we all got in with out even a bribe. Wey did have to be my girlfriend for a night. It was kind of funny.
We got back from the club at 5am and had to wake up at 8:40am.
Today was death. At least the morning. A few of us went to this cool preschool that has won a million and one architecture awards. We met the architect , he was a cool if not a bit eccentric guy that always wore at least some form of blue. It was the first building I liked in Tokyo though. It has a nice function to it, as well as a pleasing form. I really need to post pictures to describe it.
We got back at 4:00 and I checked in. Then I went out to Harajyuku again. Its Sunday here so Harajyuku was hopping. That was litterly a rave in the middle of the street at 6:00pm. Afterwords I took a long train over to the Imperial Palace which I didn't get to see because it was closed. Next I went over to Shinjyuku and got some dinner. I went to Omote yokochyo otherwise know as Yakitori Alley and had some Yakitori and a drink. I met this cool British guy who was teaching English over here near Mt.Fuji. We talked for a bit then went out separate ways. I went over to Golden Gai for a few minutes afterwords. Its this big alley with literally 60 small bars in it. Its supposed to be crazy at night but because its a Sunday it wasn't very interesting. After that I went back to the hostel and am now done with the day.
Oh I need to remind my self to talk about Gaijin Smashing tomorrow. I totally forgot about the title of my post.
The last day was really relaxed. Our presentations were at 2:00 so I went over to Harajyuku and Omotesando and did some shopping for things I didn't need. Then I ate at the same reastraunt that I ate at the first time I visited Harajyuku street back in 2005. It was a nice morning.
Presentations took 3 hours and just dragged on. Everyone did very well. I bombed mine by getting flustered at a messed up slide. Should have checked and prepped harder. Lesson learned I guess.
The night we had our final group dinner, Shabushabu. Also fun, we got some good pictures. After dinner it was time for Ageha the largest club in Asia. In short it sucked. Lots of techno, which I don't really know how to dance to and on top of that the people the people weren't very friendly and I couldn't really talk to them. On top of that the cover cost 40$, and half the people I went with I didn't really like. The fun part was getting Wey into the club when she forgot her ID. We ended up waiting in the losers line for like 15min while the Japanese bouncers freaked out about being polite. In the end we all got in with out even a bribe. Wey did have to be my girlfriend for a night. It was kind of funny.
We got back from the club at 5am and had to wake up at 8:40am.
Today was death. At least the morning. A few of us went to this cool preschool that has won a million and one architecture awards. We met the architect , he was a cool if not a bit eccentric guy that always wore at least some form of blue. It was the first building I liked in Tokyo though. It has a nice function to it, as well as a pleasing form. I really need to post pictures to describe it.
We got back at 4:00 and I checked in. Then I went out to Harajyuku again. Its Sunday here so Harajyuku was hopping. That was litterly a rave in the middle of the street at 6:00pm. Afterwords I took a long train over to the Imperial Palace which I didn't get to see because it was closed. Next I went over to Shinjyuku and got some dinner. I went to Omote yokochyo otherwise know as Yakitori Alley and had some Yakitori and a drink. I met this cool British guy who was teaching English over here near Mt.Fuji. We talked for a bit then went out separate ways. I went over to Golden Gai for a few minutes afterwords. Its this big alley with literally 60 small bars in it. Its supposed to be crazy at night but because its a Sunday it wasn't very interesting. After that I went back to the hostel and am now done with the day.
Oh I need to remind my self to talk about Gaijin Smashing tomorrow. I totally forgot about the title of my post.
I'm running out of funny titles...
Again an update 3 days late, hopefully they will get better soon, although I'm defiantly not going to post one tomorrow night. Last day of the seminar. Large group dinner, then party afterwords.
Anyhow the last 3 days have been a blast. We started out going to Waseda University to look at an Urban Design Lab. We heard some presentations and then went to Simo-kitazawa. Its a cool artists place with lots of kind of cheep things. Also a really cool graphic design T-shirt store. It had an awesome shirt that I wanted to buy, but at that point I didn't have any cash. When I came back at night on Thursday I found out they didn't have the shirt in my size. It was Einstein smoking a join and saying “what about relativity” . Pretty amazing if you ask me. Lunch was also great. We had Hiroshima Oyakudonburi. Oishi desu ne.
Next we walked A LOT. It was kind of death. We saw some cool local urban nature projects. A stream that was the equivalent to a small scale chonggeychong. At the end of the stream was a playground with like 20 little Japanese kids playing and their mothers watching. They were so cute. A few of them ran up to us and then ran back. We tried talking, but they were to shy.
It was kind of like the time I scared the living daylights out of this group of Korean kids back in Seoul. I was walking, one of them tried their English thinking that I was out of ear shot, I turned around and he bolted as fast as he could in the opposite direction. His friends just stood there and looked at me sheepishly. It was so cute. Anyway so were these little Japanese kids. One of them said something about not speaking English in Japanese to his friends and then they went back to playing.
Next we met an old coworker of Jeff's Takashida-Sensei(I think). He was this cool old guy. It was really fun seeing Jeff and this guy interact. You got the feeling that these two guys were old friends from back in the day. Also I got the feeling that these guys did some big things together in terms of community organizing back when they were younger. They both sounded so wistful for the old days. Jeff is a really laid back guy, but it was really cool to see him in a group with his peers. Then we had to sit though an hour long presentation by the guy. At that point we were all really hungry from walking all day, everyone slept at one point or another. I even saw Jeff and Naomi (our co-leader) drift off for a bit.
Dinner was interesting. We had some sort of hotpot meal. Some people in the exploration seminar also started to get on my nerves as well, some people were really funny though so it kind of evens out.
The next day we went down to Yokohama. Thats about it. Down to Yokohama saw a nicely designed dock, ate in China town, grabbed some money (finally!) and went over to an old ladies shopping district. All that took until 3:00pm. Thats when the fun started. I hung out with Mathias and his Japanese friend Shigeyo for the rest of the afternoon. We went to this amazing red brick structure that had a great mall inside. I found a really nice sweatshirt to buy, and I really need one of those, but the stupid Japanese clothing industry doesn't believe in making anything larger than an American medium. I would have broken it if I put it on all the way. I'm still adjusting to going to places where you have to pay more than 20$ for a shirt. Its kind of annoying and I'm looking forward to getting back to Seattle and paying reasonable prices for clothes.
Anyhow after that we went back to Simo-kitazawa where I was reaffirmed in the theory that there are no Japanese clothes larger than a medium. We had to leave some late people behind to go to dinner with some more of Mathias' friends. I kind of felt bad, but dinner made up for it. We went to Shibuya station, and found his friends in front of Hachiko. The first two that showed up were Shiho, and Iyako. Two Japanese business women. Then Johnny a very American English teacher showed up. We went out for Shabushabu. An all you can eat hotpot type deal. It was amazing. I've never had so much meat in my life.
As a side note I've noticed that Korea and Japan you often have to cook the meat yourself once you get it. I'm sometimes sketched out by the idea. Especially with Korean BBQ, although it doesn't stop me from eating it because it delicious.
Anyway after that it was just about time for bed. I finished my book, figured out my project for today and went to sleep.
Today kicked my ass. Normally we take breaks with Jeff. I forget to take those breaks. Also it was a lot hotter than the previous few days. The humidity was gone, but I still sweated a bit. It kind of sucked. My first stop was Ueno again. I wanted to go shopping there thinking that was going to be cheep. I knew of a place to get a nice Rage Against the Machine T-shirt, only to find out that it cost 40$. Instead I got my self a nice Japanese Speedo (I needed one anyway) and called it a day.
Next stop was Akihabara again with money! I really shouldn't have brought money. I'll have to show people everything I bought there individually. Its a bit much. I got some nice pictures for my project though and really enjoyed hanging out with all the Otaku. I accidentally ran into some Henti shops. That was an interesting experience. I almost feel compelled to buy some now just to say I have it :).
Ginza was the last stop on my tour for my project. I hate Ginza, and still do. If I ever come back I'm not even going to go to the station. To upper class for me. Anyhow I managed to get my self good and lost before I found the station I was looking to photograph. Then I realized that there wasn't anything under the tracks. I walked a long way, got a feel for the merchants and booked it back to the hostel.
Tonight was taken up designing my project, and I managed to take a Japanese bath. Finally, after a week in Japan. It felt amazing. I wish I knew about the place sooner. Its in our hostel complex. Lesson learned I guess.
Some people didn't like getting naked. I figure go with the cultural norms. A lot of people have been trying to import American culture into Japan and Korea in different forms, or making judgment biased off of American sensibilities. The importing culture thing I think is just stupid. Were not here long enough to really effect any lasting change, and if its not continued then it doesn't really matter. The making judgments aspect is alright, I can see why you would, we have to judge everything some how, but unless you understand the historical reason why someone does something and can see the action through their viewpoint then even if your judging something your not going to really understand it.
Anyhow thats about it from over here. One more half day of seminar than freedom! I doubt I'll be posting much, maybe though. Heres my roughed out schedule.
Sun: Local Tokyo Sights
Mon: Nikko
Tues: Get my JR Rail and head over to the Isu Peninsula. Hike/ do the tourist thing
Weds: Climb Mt. Fuji (Weather permitting)
Thurs: Fuji-ku (a kind of amusement park), Shinkansen to Kyoto
Friday: Go River Rafting, temple seeing and meeting a friends parents to show them around. Then chill with Michael.
Sat: Nara and Osaka maybe
Sun: More temples and hang out with Michael
Mon:Kill my self and get ready for a 20 hour day at least to get home.
It really doesn't feel like I've got a lot of time left :(
Anyhow the last 3 days have been a blast. We started out going to Waseda University to look at an Urban Design Lab. We heard some presentations and then went to Simo-kitazawa. Its a cool artists place with lots of kind of cheep things. Also a really cool graphic design T-shirt store. It had an awesome shirt that I wanted to buy, but at that point I didn't have any cash. When I came back at night on Thursday I found out they didn't have the shirt in my size. It was Einstein smoking a join and saying “what about relativity” . Pretty amazing if you ask me. Lunch was also great. We had Hiroshima Oyakudonburi. Oishi desu ne.
Next we walked A LOT. It was kind of death. We saw some cool local urban nature projects. A stream that was the equivalent to a small scale chonggeychong. At the end of the stream was a playground with like 20 little Japanese kids playing and their mothers watching. They were so cute. A few of them ran up to us and then ran back. We tried talking, but they were to shy.
It was kind of like the time I scared the living daylights out of this group of Korean kids back in Seoul. I was walking, one of them tried their English thinking that I was out of ear shot, I turned around and he bolted as fast as he could in the opposite direction. His friends just stood there and looked at me sheepishly. It was so cute. Anyway so were these little Japanese kids. One of them said something about not speaking English in Japanese to his friends and then they went back to playing.
Next we met an old coworker of Jeff's Takashida-Sensei(I think). He was this cool old guy. It was really fun seeing Jeff and this guy interact. You got the feeling that these two guys were old friends from back in the day. Also I got the feeling that these guys did some big things together in terms of community organizing back when they were younger. They both sounded so wistful for the old days. Jeff is a really laid back guy, but it was really cool to see him in a group with his peers. Then we had to sit though an hour long presentation by the guy. At that point we were all really hungry from walking all day, everyone slept at one point or another. I even saw Jeff and Naomi (our co-leader) drift off for a bit.
Dinner was interesting. We had some sort of hotpot meal. Some people in the exploration seminar also started to get on my nerves as well, some people were really funny though so it kind of evens out.
The next day we went down to Yokohama. Thats about it. Down to Yokohama saw a nicely designed dock, ate in China town, grabbed some money (finally!) and went over to an old ladies shopping district. All that took until 3:00pm. Thats when the fun started. I hung out with Mathias and his Japanese friend Shigeyo for the rest of the afternoon. We went to this amazing red brick structure that had a great mall inside. I found a really nice sweatshirt to buy, and I really need one of those, but the stupid Japanese clothing industry doesn't believe in making anything larger than an American medium. I would have broken it if I put it on all the way. I'm still adjusting to going to places where you have to pay more than 20$ for a shirt. Its kind of annoying and I'm looking forward to getting back to Seattle and paying reasonable prices for clothes.
Anyhow after that we went back to Simo-kitazawa where I was reaffirmed in the theory that there are no Japanese clothes larger than a medium. We had to leave some late people behind to go to dinner with some more of Mathias' friends. I kind of felt bad, but dinner made up for it. We went to Shibuya station, and found his friends in front of Hachiko. The first two that showed up were Shiho, and Iyako. Two Japanese business women. Then Johnny a very American English teacher showed up. We went out for Shabushabu. An all you can eat hotpot type deal. It was amazing. I've never had so much meat in my life.
As a side note I've noticed that Korea and Japan you often have to cook the meat yourself once you get it. I'm sometimes sketched out by the idea. Especially with Korean BBQ, although it doesn't stop me from eating it because it delicious.
Anyway after that it was just about time for bed. I finished my book, figured out my project for today and went to sleep.
Today kicked my ass. Normally we take breaks with Jeff. I forget to take those breaks. Also it was a lot hotter than the previous few days. The humidity was gone, but I still sweated a bit. It kind of sucked. My first stop was Ueno again. I wanted to go shopping there thinking that was going to be cheep. I knew of a place to get a nice Rage Against the Machine T-shirt, only to find out that it cost 40$. Instead I got my self a nice Japanese Speedo (I needed one anyway) and called it a day.
Next stop was Akihabara again with money! I really shouldn't have brought money. I'll have to show people everything I bought there individually. Its a bit much. I got some nice pictures for my project though and really enjoyed hanging out with all the Otaku. I accidentally ran into some Henti shops. That was an interesting experience. I almost feel compelled to buy some now just to say I have it :).
Ginza was the last stop on my tour for my project. I hate Ginza, and still do. If I ever come back I'm not even going to go to the station. To upper class for me. Anyhow I managed to get my self good and lost before I found the station I was looking to photograph. Then I realized that there wasn't anything under the tracks. I walked a long way, got a feel for the merchants and booked it back to the hostel.
Tonight was taken up designing my project, and I managed to take a Japanese bath. Finally, after a week in Japan. It felt amazing. I wish I knew about the place sooner. Its in our hostel complex. Lesson learned I guess.
Some people didn't like getting naked. I figure go with the cultural norms. A lot of people have been trying to import American culture into Japan and Korea in different forms, or making judgment biased off of American sensibilities. The importing culture thing I think is just stupid. Were not here long enough to really effect any lasting change, and if its not continued then it doesn't really matter. The making judgments aspect is alright, I can see why you would, we have to judge everything some how, but unless you understand the historical reason why someone does something and can see the action through their viewpoint then even if your judging something your not going to really understand it.
Anyhow thats about it from over here. One more half day of seminar than freedom! I doubt I'll be posting much, maybe though. Heres my roughed out schedule.
Sun: Local Tokyo Sights
Mon: Nikko
Tues: Get my JR Rail and head over to the Isu Peninsula. Hike/ do the tourist thing
Weds: Climb Mt. Fuji (Weather permitting)
Thurs: Fuji-ku (a kind of amusement park), Shinkansen to Kyoto
Friday: Go River Rafting, temple seeing and meeting a friends parents to show them around. Then chill with Michael.
Sat: Nara and Osaka maybe
Sun: More temples and hang out with Michael
Mon:Kill my self and get ready for a 20 hour day at least to get home.
It really doesn't feel like I've got a lot of time left :(
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Catching up Again
Well the last 3 days have been kind of crazy so I haven't had a chance to update. I got back from clubbing at 4am after walking back from Roppongi. Taxi's here are fricking expensive.
I woke up to go to the Harajyuku area. We walked around looking at the famous subcultures in the park. Including 50 year old Elvis impersonators and some really good bands, then went into the more commercial part the street. This is when my 2 days of awkwardness began. After we got out of the famous alley way (I forget its name right now). We went into the higher class shopping area. We as we made our way through the area I felt progressavely more out of place until finally we got to Omotesando Hills. This is a place where you could buy an under T for 60$. Then it started raining, hard. We took cover in the subway for an early dinner at 5:00.
After dinner I went shopping with Patrick and Will for a few hours. Or actually a better way to say it was I was suffering from sticker shock for a few hours. No store they went into was selling stuff for less than 150$ for a jacket. This is when I realized that I was raised completely differently than these people, and my value system was totally different. Style over substance my ass.
I went home read and slept.
The next day was worse. We went to Shinjyuku which was alright. I saw some cool buildings and an intresting middle class culture. Then we went back to Rippongi, the place where I went clubbing before. I've previously heard that it was kind of a dangerous area from Japanese friends. I only saw it at night and it was definitely more dangerous than other parts of Tokyo, meaning I wouldn't let a girl walk alone at night here, unlike the rest of Tokyo where that is almost acceptable. In the day time it was very different. We went to two development projects, both of which were selling things for more money than I could dream of. I didn't even bother to look at the price tags. I really just couldn't deal with the amount of money that was being spent on useless stuff here. I felt completely and utterly out of place. There was no function only form and I couldn't understand it.
I got out Rippongi asap and tried to get some money out of an ATM to go souvenir shopping. Thats when my night of crisis started. I'll leave it at that and say I'm fairly sure that everything has been taken care of.
Today was much better. We started out in this little shopping street that called yanaka-ginza. It was quant, out of the way and middle class. I felt right at home. I saw a nice yokata there, but because a distinct lack of funds I couldn't buy it. Thats when I realized today might not have been the best day to not have money. Next up was Ueno. Famous for a zoo which we did not see, and a giant ww2 black market under the tracks. Again I saw great engrish shirts, and other things that would have made great gifts. Sadly I'm going to have to go back. The shops were crazy. They were literally right under the tracks. Trains going over head every 3 minutes. Just like out of a Sifi movie. I'd love to come back here at night.
Next up was Akihabara. Also known as electric town or geeks town. This is when I really started crying. I walk into the store and the first thing I see is a Terabyte external hard drive for 230$. Then I walk into this little anime store and see a whole bunch of things from Miyazaki films. It was amazing. I could easily spend a day here shopping. Everyone else can have their nice clothes I'll take this stuff instead.
The day finished up kind of blandly at Shibuya, the busiest station in Tokyo. Its our transfer point to get anywhere else in the city so we've been there a lot of times now. Meh. Tomorrow should be nice. I get to go to a urban planning lab and look around. I'll write more about it tomorrow. Or most likely the next day. The exploration seminar is having another group dinner and those always go late.
I woke up to go to the Harajyuku area. We walked around looking at the famous subcultures in the park. Including 50 year old Elvis impersonators and some really good bands, then went into the more commercial part the street. This is when my 2 days of awkwardness began. After we got out of the famous alley way (I forget its name right now). We went into the higher class shopping area. We as we made our way through the area I felt progressavely more out of place until finally we got to Omotesando Hills. This is a place where you could buy an under T for 60$. Then it started raining, hard. We took cover in the subway for an early dinner at 5:00.
After dinner I went shopping with Patrick and Will for a few hours. Or actually a better way to say it was I was suffering from sticker shock for a few hours. No store they went into was selling stuff for less than 150$ for a jacket. This is when I realized that I was raised completely differently than these people, and my value system was totally different. Style over substance my ass.
I went home read and slept.
The next day was worse. We went to Shinjyuku which was alright. I saw some cool buildings and an intresting middle class culture. Then we went back to Rippongi, the place where I went clubbing before. I've previously heard that it was kind of a dangerous area from Japanese friends. I only saw it at night and it was definitely more dangerous than other parts of Tokyo, meaning I wouldn't let a girl walk alone at night here, unlike the rest of Tokyo where that is almost acceptable. In the day time it was very different. We went to two development projects, both of which were selling things for more money than I could dream of. I didn't even bother to look at the price tags. I really just couldn't deal with the amount of money that was being spent on useless stuff here. I felt completely and utterly out of place. There was no function only form and I couldn't understand it.
I got out Rippongi asap and tried to get some money out of an ATM to go souvenir shopping. Thats when my night of crisis started. I'll leave it at that and say I'm fairly sure that everything has been taken care of.
Today was much better. We started out in this little shopping street that called yanaka-ginza. It was quant, out of the way and middle class. I felt right at home. I saw a nice yokata there, but because a distinct lack of funds I couldn't buy it. Thats when I realized today might not have been the best day to not have money. Next up was Ueno. Famous for a zoo which we did not see, and a giant ww2 black market under the tracks. Again I saw great engrish shirts, and other things that would have made great gifts. Sadly I'm going to have to go back. The shops were crazy. They were literally right under the tracks. Trains going over head every 3 minutes. Just like out of a Sifi movie. I'd love to come back here at night.
Next up was Akihabara. Also known as electric town or geeks town. This is when I really started crying. I walk into the store and the first thing I see is a Terabyte external hard drive for 230$. Then I walk into this little anime store and see a whole bunch of things from Miyazaki films. It was amazing. I could easily spend a day here shopping. Everyone else can have their nice clothes I'll take this stuff instead.
The day finished up kind of blandly at Shibuya, the busiest station in Tokyo. Its our transfer point to get anywhere else in the city so we've been there a lot of times now. Meh. Tomorrow should be nice. I get to go to a urban planning lab and look around. I'll write more about it tomorrow. Or most likely the next day. The exploration seminar is having another group dinner and those always go late.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
12 hour days
are not fun. Today some of us got up at 5:00 to go to the most famous fish Market in Japan, Tsukuji. The action there can only be described as organized chaos, and is best shown in pictures. I saw 1000$ whole Tuna, and tiny eel. I had uni, also know as sea urchin, and almost got run over by trucks multiple times. That was all before 8:00am.
After that I passed out illegally in a subway for an hour while I waited for the seminar to actually start. We started at 9:30, and kept walking for the entire day until 5 in 27-30 degree weather with like 60% humidity. Starting from Tsukiji we basically walked all around the city. I have notes on the names of the places we went to, but basically we saw different streetscapes biased on different development practices.
Lunch was intresting. We had Osaka style okonomiyaki and Tokyo style okonomiyaki. I has a different name, but I forget it now. It was amazingly good though. I'll have to learn how to make it when I get home.
One intresting place we went to was Ginza. I didn't remember going there in 2005, but as soon as I saw the Sony store I realized we had dinner here on the second night. The rest of the district looked completely different though. In part it was because we approached from a different angle, but mostly it was because the district had been redeveloped. I looked for the sifi-scape under the train tracks that I remembered so well last time only to find it completely gone, destroyed by high class boutiques. I looked for the little fake Italian Restaurant we ate at on the second day only to find a plaza where it should have been. It was kind of sad. The Sony building was completely different as well. I was shocked.
After that more walking. We ended up in Shinjyuku and the Love Hotel hill. Anyhow that was about the day. Mostly it was crazy hot out and a lot of walking. I'm really tired and don't remember much else. Time for a nap, then because its Saturday here its time to go out!
After that I passed out illegally in a subway for an hour while I waited for the seminar to actually start. We started at 9:30, and kept walking for the entire day until 5 in 27-30 degree weather with like 60% humidity. Starting from Tsukiji we basically walked all around the city. I have notes on the names of the places we went to, but basically we saw different streetscapes biased on different development practices.
Lunch was intresting. We had Osaka style okonomiyaki and Tokyo style okonomiyaki. I has a different name, but I forget it now. It was amazingly good though. I'll have to learn how to make it when I get home.
One intresting place we went to was Ginza. I didn't remember going there in 2005, but as soon as I saw the Sony store I realized we had dinner here on the second night. The rest of the district looked completely different though. In part it was because we approached from a different angle, but mostly it was because the district had been redeveloped. I looked for the sifi-scape under the train tracks that I remembered so well last time only to find it completely gone, destroyed by high class boutiques. I looked for the little fake Italian Restaurant we ate at on the second day only to find a plaza where it should have been. It was kind of sad. The Sony building was completely different as well. I was shocked.
After that more walking. We ended up in Shinjyuku and the Love Hotel hill. Anyhow that was about the day. Mostly it was crazy hot out and a lot of walking. I'm really tired and don't remember much else. Time for a nap, then because its Saturday here its time to go out!
Friday, September 5, 2008
I wonder if you know...
Well the first 2 days in Tokyo are almost over. Tomorrow were going to Tsukiji Fish Market at 5:30 in the morning, its 11:00pm here right now so this will be a quick blog. First impressions: My Japanese skills have improved greatly. Not enough to make conversation, but at least I can ask basic questions now. Maybe that comes with growing up. The cost of living here is amazingly high as well. I've already spent over 100$ on basic stuff. Hopefully I'll be stingy later on, but when your spending 10$ on transportation a day at least it might be hard. Can't wait till the JR pass kicks in.
Yesterday was quite interesting. I got into Narita at 2:30, and proceeded to wait for Mung who was the last person to arrive for the next 2 hours. I kept my self busy finding out where he was landing though. It was my first taste of speaking Japanese in the country and man was it hard. I asked the people at the baggage claim if I could have it instead of waiting there. Mung and I took the Narita express train to Shinjyuku station, it was a hour long uneventful ride. I felt like the outlying area of Tokyo developed a little more sence 2005 when I was last here, but thats about it. The group left for dinner 5 min before we got to the Hostel so Mung and I took a crazy cab ride trying to catch up with them. We ended up finding Jeff at a train station and going to the restaurant. Dinner was uneventful. We met our new co-instructor Naomi there though.
Today was the same thing I did on the first day of Tokyo last time I went. Asakusa shrine, and Fuji TV. Nothing really changed, although I got a lot more pictures this time around. Mathais, Jen, Vanessa and I took a round about way home, went grocery shopping and finally made it back to the Yoyogi youth center. Then we went swimming. I'm out of shape. The swimmers here are way better than the ones in Korea. I really wish I brought my Speedo along. Anyhow thats 2 pools I've swam in that Olympians have swam in. This wasn't the Olympic Pool though. Were just staying in the old 1964 Olympic village. After swimming Mathais and I went to grab dinner. We walked into a place that looked good, sat down, read the menu and realized we were in a Korean Japanese restaurant. Kind of funny, kind of annoying, the food was good though so I'm not going to complain. Anyhow thats about it for today. I'm really excited to go to Tsukuji tomorrow.
Yesterday was quite interesting. I got into Narita at 2:30, and proceeded to wait for Mung who was the last person to arrive for the next 2 hours. I kept my self busy finding out where he was landing though. It was my first taste of speaking Japanese in the country and man was it hard. I asked the people at the baggage claim if I could have it instead of waiting there. Mung and I took the Narita express train to Shinjyuku station, it was a hour long uneventful ride. I felt like the outlying area of Tokyo developed a little more sence 2005 when I was last here, but thats about it. The group left for dinner 5 min before we got to the Hostel so Mung and I took a crazy cab ride trying to catch up with them. We ended up finding Jeff at a train station and going to the restaurant. Dinner was uneventful. We met our new co-instructor Naomi there though.
Today was the same thing I did on the first day of Tokyo last time I went. Asakusa shrine, and Fuji TV. Nothing really changed, although I got a lot more pictures this time around. Mathais, Jen, Vanessa and I took a round about way home, went grocery shopping and finally made it back to the Yoyogi youth center. Then we went swimming. I'm out of shape. The swimmers here are way better than the ones in Korea. I really wish I brought my Speedo along. Anyhow thats 2 pools I've swam in that Olympians have swam in. This wasn't the Olympic Pool though. Were just staying in the old 1964 Olympic village. After swimming Mathais and I went to grab dinner. We walked into a place that looked good, sat down, read the menu and realized we were in a Korean Japanese restaurant. Kind of funny, kind of annoying, the food was good though so I'm not going to complain. Anyhow thats about it for today. I'm really excited to go to Tsukuji tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Catching up
Well true to my promise I got a little sidetracked from keeping track of what was going on in Seoul. Starting off from Friday we visited South of the Han river. This place was much more developed than the north that we were staying in, it was also much richer. That picture I've got up there. Its one of the smaller cheep developments south of the river. Cheep meaning that it might cost about a million dollars to live in one of those condos. We went to two other shopping districts as well. Abjugong, and another one that I totally forget the name of now. Its not really important. The excessiveness of those places just amazed me though. I keep thinking I've come across the rich of the rich, only to find richer people and places. Its really hard to imagine.
Friday night me, Matt, and his friend Kenny hit up the clubs in Itewon, the foreign district, actually I should say we hit up the gay clubs in Itewon. That was an interesting introduction to clubbing in general :). I got facebook friended by a gay Korean guy that could barely speak English Very interesting night indead. Oh and not just the night. Seoul stays up until 6-8 in the morning partying. Matt and I called it quits at 5am, and the club we left was still very very full.
The next day I was understandably very tired. I slept in till 2, and wandered out to find food and wandered back. Then it was time for a group dinner. We went to Hungki Unviersity district. Its basically like the ave on crack and not sketchy. There are apparently a lot of clubs in the area, but everyone except for Matt and I had done the night before (We got ditched on Friday due to a miscommunication, well that and drama that I don't want to go into). As a result I ended up going back to Itewon with a different group of people. We ended up at a straight club that I visited the night before called b1. It was interesting I got hit on by a girl from Yeouido (remember the super rich area). One of the girls in our group named Brenda did one better. She some how attracted the attention of this Korean guy who proceeded to take us all out to a Sake bar. The Korean in our group said she trusted him. I wouldn't have gone otherwise. Anyhow we ended up in this Sake bar at 4am with this Korean guy and find out this hes ridiculously loaded. The day before we had talked about second generation money being able to buy houses in places like Yeouido. This guy had a place in Abjugong. Apparently the apartment costs about 20 million dollars and the guy drove a 2 person Mercedes. In the end it got a bit late so we left at 5 again to get to bed.
The next day I woke up late again only to go out to a Filipino Market, and Itewon again... Only this time in the daytime. Thank god. 3 days of parties in a row would not be fun. I promptly went back to sleep after our trip. Woke up to discuss my project with Jeff at 7 and went back to sleep again.
This brings us to Monday. I wake up with a cold, most likely from saying up till 5am 2 nights in a row. To make matters worse I walk outside into heavy rain. The first and only day of rain we've had in Seoul. Well its a good thing my project was on the Subway system of Seoul. Everyones else in my class had problems with their project, but not me. I just couldn't take proper pictures or think effectively :). I was up till 1am putting together a slide show for my presentation on Tuesday.
Tuesday I was still kind of sick. Blowing my noes every hour or so. We went to Seoul National University which had a bigger campus than the UW. I was so surprised. We walked around for a bit, sat though 2 hours of presentations and critiques in a unbearably hot room and left. My presentation went off fine. I pulled out some stuff about Architecture design pattens and I think everyone though I made the presentation way to complicated. That night we had a group dinner with gelato for desert. I wasn't to hungry. I got to bed early.
That brings us to today. I've still got a stuffy nose, but I'm doing much better. Today was a free day so I woke up late to get a bit better and went off to Changgyeonggung. Its a world heritage site, and was very nice. There I ran into this really cool French guy name Peter. He grew up near the same place Kate lived I think. We talked the entire tour and I actually found out he was a Computer Science major. It was really nice to talk about PHP, C, C++, and code stuff again. Even if he was a bit hard to understand. I forgot how much I missed talking about that stuff. We went and got some lunch together. Apparently he was doing an internship in China, and needed to leave for 2 days to refresh his Visa. He'd never been to Seoul so I offered to show him around. We ended up going to the Korean War Memorial near Itewon. That place was an amazing piece of propaganda. Remember Koreans all have to serve 2 years in the military. Pictures speak louder than words in this case. We parted ways fairly late. I went back to Insadong and did some shopping. I picked up a nice hanging scroll for my self, and some presents for friends. I over paid for the scroll, but I don't really care. After that I came back to the hostel and decided to explore to the east. the only direction that I hadn't really gone before. I was a great decision. I snapped some perfect pictures, and really felt like I took in a lot of what old Seoul is all about. It didn't hurt there was some great music playing as I walked. I walked down a bit after I hit a place wall and when I turned around overshot my target. I ended up along Chonggeychong at night. I really wish Seattle had such a nice public space that we could go to at night and feel safe and at home. I'll have to write a blog entry on Chonggeychong alone at some point. Anyhow I got lost there for a bit and found my way back to the hostel after getting 3 Korean doughnuts for 1000 won. The things are amazing. Again another entry soon. Anyhow that basically concludes my stay in Seoul.
The one thing that I didn't mention was cool German and French guys, that and learning languages. I'll leave those notes to my self for later.
My flight is at 12:00 tomorrow afternoon, and I've got to get up at 7:00. The next post will be from Japan!
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