So today I f*@#!d up... I bought a bag of cheetos at Familymart. It was disgusting, don't by cheetos in Japan. That is all for today
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So, my roommate and I have been going a little crazy with buying manga in the past couple months. At the moment between us we have almost 200 volumes. We're sending a box each back home today, the shipping cost from what we've been able to estimate is gonna be about 8000 yen each for the cheapest slowest method. The books should be arriving roughly around the same time we get back home.
Golden week has come and past and I had a lot of fun. My friend took me to Mt. Takao and we climbed to the top, then after we climbed down we went to a little restaurant and got some Eel. I was worried I wouldn't like it at first but it was pretty good. Then we went to a place called Musashi Imperial Graveyard that has the burial sites of Emperor Taisho and Emperor Showa as well as their wives. It was a really beautiful area. Later in the week I took a trip up to Miyagi Ken, I took a night bus from Tokyo station Wednesday night and got to Fukushima Thursday morning then took the local train to Shiroishi. First I went to Shiroishi castle for a few hours, then from the station I took a taxi to the place I've been wanting to go for the longest time. The Zao fox village. There were a lot more people there than I thought there would be. It was really fun walking around the village and seeing all the foxes they had there. The foxes mostly kept to themselves and were lazing about in various places. The main place they were interacting with people was the only spot that you were allowed to give them food. I finally learned from this trip, what the fox says... I'm sorry for the pain that past line gave whoever is reading this. I got a couple of souvenirs and decided to make my way back to Shiroishi station. Instead of using a taxi or bus though, I walked down the mountain, it took a few hours and was a little dangerous in a couple spots, but it was an amazing experience, all of the sights on the way down were really beautiful, and once I got to the bottom of the mountain, the rest of the walk was through farm lands. It was an amazing experience overall. I got to the station and headed back to Fukushima station to wait for the night bus back to Tokyo. Overall it was an awesome day trip, but I don't recommend riding two night buses in a 24 hour period. It's hard to actually sleep on them, at least for me, and I was dead tired by the time I got back home.
A few of the RAs at the I-house led a group to go to a park in Shinjuku to see the cherry blossoms. It was a lot of fun having a picnic with everyone while the petals were falling around us. The park was really beautiful with all of the trees in bloom and the other various flower gardens that were there. Afterwards some of us went to this really good burger place near the park, hands down best burger I've had since I came to Japan.
There was a cool rock festival event this weekend that I went to. I got to see a couple of bands I started to listen to after coming to Japan, Kana Boon and ゲスの極み乙女 are the main two I wanted to see, but all of the performances were really good.
I can't believe it's been almost a month since I left Tokyo. I can't even begin to talk about all of the things I did while I was away. I'll just talk about highlights a little bit. On the platform at Tokyo station before I left, a nice older lady gave me some chocolate, I got valentine day chocolate. In Fukuoka I went to EVO Japan, had Hakata ramen, and went to a little island called Shikashima. On my way back from the island I did something you shouldn't do when traveling and took a ride from a couple of strangers, but I didn't want to decline their offer to give me a ride back to the station after I talked with them a bit. It was really cute, it was a father, his infant son, and the grandfather all together. In Nagasaki I went to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, it was such a surreal experience, and went to the top of Inasayama, the view of Nagasaki from up there was amazing. In Kitakyushu I went to Ganryujima and saw a really cool statue depicting the duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro. From there I went to Hiroshima and went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the experience was just as surreal as in Nagasaki, then I took a day trip to Itsukushima and saw the tori gate in the ocean as well as the shrine there and hung out with the very friendly deer. The next day I took another day trip to rabbit island. The rabbits there were so cute, it was funny watching them chase people down for food. I made a complete lap around the island, and seeing all of the abandoned buildings from WW2 was a bit eerie. It'd be cool and scary to have a test of courage night there. On the way to Okayama I stopped at Fukuyama for a couple hours to see Fukuyama castle, and went to the castle in Okayama as well. Next stop was Himeji and like the previous two places, went to see the castle, but this time I was able to go inside the castle and see what it was like on the inside. It was amazing seeing the design on the inside, the stairs to go up and down each level were very steep but the view from the top made the climb worth it. The ticket for going into the castle included a ticket to the garden near the castle so I headed there after exploring everything and took a really peaceful stroll through there. Next stop on the journey brought me to Kobe, went to the Kobe animal kingdom while I was there, it was a lot of fun watching the bird show they had, and seeing the various animals that they had there. On from there I went to Osaka. I mostly spent my time wondering around the streets, I can't explain it well but it felt like Tokyo, but better. Tried a bunch of different street food and went to the Aquarium in there, as well as going to Osaka castle. It was a bit tough the day I went to Osaka castle because it was raining on and off all day. The inside of the castle was filled with a lot of historical displays about the castle which was really cool, but I preferred the way it was setup in Himeji castle more than there. Kyoto was next on the journey, but my first day there I took a day trip to Nara to see Horyuji temple, I had heard about in one of my classes back home and really wanted to see it, it was amazing being so close to it. Then before heading back to Kyoto I had to stop by Nara koen to see all the deer. I understand why their antlers are cut off, but it was still sad to see. It was amusing to watch some of the people there trying to give the deer some crackers but at the same time being terrified and running away from them. In Kyoto once more, I headed to Kinkaku-ji to see the golden temple, very amazing building. After that I braced myself for climbing the many steps to the top of Fushima Inari Taisha. It was a very tiring journey to the top, but the views of the city on the way to the top were amazing. At the top I tried praying at the shrine there, I hope I did it right. After getting back down I treated myself to some Ichiran ramen, It was an interesting experience. Moving forward on my journey I found myself in Nagoya to see Nagoya castle. Before leaving Nagoya I went to a science museum there and saw some cool things, and spent some time being cooled off in their cold room that simulates polar temperatures, we went through three different rooms, each getting colder, from minus 10c in the first room to minus 30c in the last room. I could actually feel my hair getting frozen. I was starting to get a little tired from the trip so I decided to make my last stop my last. From Nagoya I headed to Mt. Fuji. The first day I was there I was sad because it was overcast and couldn't see Mt. Fuji well from where I was, but I was able to explore a few of the caves in the area, in a couple of them I had to practically crawl to get through the more narrow spots. I was able to walk through part of Aokigahara on a trail between a couple of the caves. The forest is really beautiful, it's sad that there's such a stigma surrounding it. The next day I was very happy to find that it was a birght clear sunny day. I made my way to a couple of nearby mountain tops and got some really good views and pictures of Mt. Fuji and the surrounding area. Finally, I made the relatively short 2 hour bus trip from Fuji Q Highlands to Tokyo station and then finally from there back home. I'm tired, my feet hurt, and I'm going to take a nap now.
About to leave for Tokyo station. I'm really excited, almost as excited as before coming here to Japan. Gonna get on a bullet train for Fukuoka and begin exploring Japan a little bit more. Plan right now is to spend a few days in Fukuoka, then head to Nagasaki for a couple days, then back up to Kitakyushu for a couple days, then I'll decide from there where to go. Don't have much of a plan as to what I want to see, just gonna wing it and decide where to go as I slowly make my way back to Tokyo using buses and local trains. For sure I want to go to Hiroshima, Kyoto, Osaka and Mt. Fuji, but I'll definitely be going to other places in between as I go along. If I don't post again it's because I was kidnapped during my trip and horribly murdered, or something like that.
This semester is over, it was a lot less intense than I thought it would have been. Toyo arranged for some of us to visit a nearby elementary school to see what it was like and talk to the kids a little about our own elementary school experiences. We had to remove our shoes before entering and were given some guest slippers to use while we were there, they were a bit too small but we managed. First we spoke a bit with the principal and some of the other teachers there, then we were split up into groups and directed to different classrooms. I've never in my life seen such well behaved children before. They were all very polite and energetic. After watching their lesson a little bit it was time for lunch. It was amazing to see the students work together to move the desks and chairs in the classroom to turn it into a little dining room, then some of the other students went to the kitchen to help bring the food to the classroom. The food was really good compared to what I remember having in elementary school, it was some sort of western dish with potatoes meat and broccoli, but I'm not sure what it was called. The kids had all kinds of random questions about elementary school back in America and questions about things I like and dislike. I asked the teacher about when their semester ended, since I was already done with my own semester at Toyo and was surprised to hear that they went on till march, and would be back in school in April.
Not gonna lie, I've been missing pizza a little more than I thought I would. The closest thing before yesterday that I had to good pizza was from dominoes, me and a friend split the cost a few months ago. It was very expensive, about 40 dollars, for a single large pizza and we were both pretty sure that the large here is smaller than a large back home. Either way, some friends and I made our way to Saitama, about an hour away, to go to Costco. I found out that I could use my Costco card internationally so we decided to head over there and see what kinds of American things we could pick up. We all ended up getting quite a lot overall. Muffins, mac'n'cheese, American style cheese, bagels, alcohol, that basics. The best part though, was the pizza. After checking out we stopped by the food court and it was basically the same as back home. There was only one item that was a little different, they didn't have a chickenbake, it was similar but had beef in it instead, still very good. The main star however was the pizza. It was the same size, price and greasy good taste as back home. We all regretted eating it though the next day.
Toyo had a cool event that let us meet the Sumo team at Toyo University and watch their practice, participate a little, and then eat lunch with them. It's incredible seeing how intense their practice is. It was really amusing watching some of the shorter people try and have a practice bout with some of the team members. My friend Alex from France did a really good job handling himself against one of them though. The food they made was really good. They had made karaage and a soup that I think they called chanko nabe. That looks right, when I looked it up just now it came up as sumo stew.
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Study abroad 2018-2019 blogAuthorMy name is John Webster and I'm a Japanese language and culture major at CSUMB. I studied abroad at Toyo University in Tokyo, Japan. Archives
August 2019
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