Day 15 Bye bye Japan

22nd October 2008

Bye bye Japan!

Day 15

Leaving Japan, don't feel too bad. Had a Japanese curry mmm...

Am just sitting at Narita airport now using the free internet service here. It actually is fast! Can't upload pictures though so that will have to wait until I get to my hostel in AUSTRALIA!

Woo Hoo!

Day 14

21st October 2008

Last full day in Japan

Day 14

I think the girls in the dorm room next to mine were smoking cannabis this morning. Anyway, I decided to go to Tokyo Imperial Palace grounds today and not do a lot.

It has been a good day and I'm feeling a lot happier than I have been recently. Started to read 'The Cathcher in the Rye' on some grass by the Imperial Palace. It was such a nice day and so peaceful that I fell asleep for a little while. It was getting a little chilly towards the end of the day so I went back to the hostel.

On my way back I decided to visit Sensoji temple again, one of the first places I visited when I came to Japan. It was nice to finish the trip where I started about 2 weeks ago. Not that I had intended to go there, just I recognised the gates when walking around the area by my hostel so went to have a little wander around. It was nice to see the temple and pagoda all lit up in the night time.

This is my last full day in Japan, and what did I do next? Went back to the hostel and watched the movie Miami Vice (how cultural).

Well I leave tomorrow. Am looking forward to going and seeing English signs in places, maybe I wont get lost as much (yeah right). Japan has been fab! And I am gonna miss t-shirt spotting though!

Day 13 Harajuku

20th October 2008

All alone in Harajuku

Day 13

Went to Harajuku today. Got lost on the way. Had to transfer between a subway and train line and ended up in a department store. Don't ask.

Strolled down the famous Takeshita street and visited an art gallery that I had had a leaflet for for a few days. I got talking to the guy who owns the gallery as he was English too and from the Channel Islands I think. Anyway he asked me if he could interview me for the gallery's website! How random! My interview and picture are on there now, click here and scroll down http://www.designfesta.com/02_en/blog/.

Went to Yoyogi Park after, but not feeling too well today. Feel a bit down actually. Apparently it's normal when adjusting to the whole travelling thing.

Back to Ueno (got lost again, surprise, surprise) and saw 3 geishas walking through the street.

The internet is so crap and slow back at the hostel. It really is the worst. When I finally got to check my emails Eli and Kayono had emailed me and I was well chuffed. They have cheered me up so much and made my stay in Japan really something. Don't know what I would have done if I wouldn't have met them!

Day 12, Tokyo

19th October 2008

Day out with Kayono and friends

Day 12

Got to Shinjuku station (Tokyo) this morning still half asleep and very tired. In one of the service stations on the way here though I saw this picture in one of the toilets (see right)-

Got lost (don't ask).

Found my way to my hostel that I am going to be at for the rest of my stay in Japan. It's in Ueno and quite nice.

Remember me saying about the Japanese lady I met in a cafe in Shinjuku the night I was getting the night bus to Osaka? Well we had been emailing each other and I met up with her and her friends today! We went on the water bus down the river in Tokyo, which was cool.

Then we went for some lunch. One thing I haven't already written about is my encounter with chopsticks especially when I first got to Japan. I thought I was using them right, but people in the restaurants would always bring me over a fork or spoon when they saw me using them. Thing is you see is that I've never used chopsticks before, and, well, I didn't know you were supposed to break them. So when they come stuck together at the top what is meant to happen is the person breaks them and uses them as 2 separate chopsticks. I did not know this. The day I found out was when Eli and I went for some food and he broke his chopsticks then I had a moment of realisation. That was why they brought me over forks and spoons in the restaurants, and I thought they were staring because I stood out a bit. Turns out I stand out a hell of a lot.

I decided to tell Eli about this when I saw him break his chopsticks and he thought this was hilarious and even had me demonstrate how to (try to) eat using this method. He said I should tell this story to every Japanese person I meet.

So anyway, Kayono, her friend and I are all sitting around about to have lunch and I decide to tell them. They were in hysterics for ages. Seriously they couldn't stop laughing and even had me demonstrate my little unknown method of using chopsticks that are joined together. Even when I thought they'd stopped, they burst out in hysterics again. My cheeks hurt so much from all the laughing.

When we'd all calmed down and had lunch we went to Harajuku. One of the first things I saw when I got off the train was this-

See the earrings? They are real live goldfish, just swimming around. Two in each bowl. Crazy man!

Went to a shrine near by and saw a lady about to get married. She was wearing a lovely white kimono. Kayono's friend left and her other friend Yuki arrived. We went for Sushi in Shibuya and it was cool.

I ate some raw fish and it was ok, though I knew it was raw fish before I put it into my mouth (not like that octopus incident). Even had a desert (not sushi). It was so much fun in the sushi place and although I didn't go near the hard stuff (squid/fish eggs/livers) I managed quite a respectable bit.

We went to an English pub after. It charged 6 quid a pint! Kayono, Yuki and I chatted about all sorts like different countries we'd been to and all sorts. It was quite sad when we said bye. They walked me to the train station and off I went.

Day 11

18th October 2008

Cycling around Kyoto day 2

Day 11

Hired a bike again. Went to the Silver Pavilion today, but it is under reconstruction. It isn't silver either. The only bit that's a bit silver looking was the scaffolding around the whole thing, see right. The gardens around it though were gorgeous and really peaceful. I cycled up a path called the Philosophers Path to get to it. Didn't feel that enlightened though after I rode it.

Went to Kyoto Municipal Art Museum too and the lady on the front desk let me in for free! Nice lady. There was a huge orange and black gate there too, which looked pretty fantastic!

I ate 3 ice creams today and felt a bit sick afterwards.

Also got talking to the worlds most boring man. Well I don't mean to be rude but he just randomly started talking to me about some English girl traveller who was killed by a Japanese man and now do all English people think Japan is full of killers so they don't visit anymore. What do you answer to that? He asked me if English people think bad of Japanese people and all these weird questions so I tried to answer but in the end said I had to get my bike back, which I did and with my track record of getting lost it was better to go sooner rather than later.

Anyway, off on the night bus again tonight. Only I got lost trying to find the boarding place and had to phone up the bus company, but it just turned out I was there that early that even the bus staff weren't there yet and that's why I couldn't see them.

Bye Kyoto!

Day 10

17th October 2008

Cycling through Kyoto

Day 10

Hired a bike today and cycled to the Golden Pavilion. It was nice.

Then cycled to Nijo castle. I paid the 16-18 years old entrance fee, although the woman at the ticket desk obviously knew I am over 18 by the expression on her face. Went into the old living quarters of the Shogun and it was gorgeous! I was amazed and ended up walking around twice. Not allowed to take photos in there though.

Finished my cycling trip by visiting Kyoto Manga Museum (pic to the right). It was more like a library really. Took some pictures and when I left saw a sign saying do not take pictures. Whoops. Back to the hostel after. One more night in Kyoto then off to Tokyo again.

Hired a bike again for tomorrow. Forgot how much fun cycling is!

Day 9, Kyoto

16th October 2008

Getting lost in Keage

Day 9

Got up bright and early at 6:30am! Not meeting Helen until 1pm so walked to Kyoto station to visit their tourist information desk and get some info. Walked there (30 mins), got maps and started walking back. Hey, hey guess what - I got lost. Again. How - I don't know, seeing as I'd just walked that way to get to the station. It was crap. Usual thing - my feet were hirting and I didn't know where I was. It took me over 1 hour and 30 mins to get back to the hostel. God knows where I went.

Anyway I met Helen at 1pm and we got a train to Keage to go and see some sort of traditional dancing show that was due on at 2pm at a temple in Keage. She knows less Japanese than me (wow) and we are equally confused by the train/subway system and were quite chuffed when we managed to get to Keage all by ourselves! All we had to do was find the temple the event was at. Needless to say we got lost.

This time it was a good kind of lost though. Ended up walking up a hill, no shrine or temple with traditional dancing but instead a graveyard with a Japanese man burning wood and shouting something at us (even with our almost non-existant knowledge of the Japanese language we got the hint that we were not meant to be up there). So we trecked back down the hill and saw this, ew-

We got to a drinks machine and bought a drink each that turned out to be a jelly drink. Weird. Helen and I knew we'd missed the show but weren't that bothered and went trecking up another hill. The scenery was awesome and the pictures don't do it justice.

It was quite random.

After our little adventure we decided to visit the Imperial Palace (see right) in Kyoto, which was nice. It was so chilled and peaceful.

On our way back, we got a train to Shijo station near to our hostel, but apparently there are 2 Shijo stations in the area (i.e. we got lost) and had to walk back to the hostel for quite a bit (feet really hurting now). Ended up walking back through a food market, which was nice!

Day 8, last day in Osaka

15th October 2008

Osaka tower

Day 8

Well it`s my lasy day in Osaka. Eli and I went up Osaka tower today. Nice views. It was pretty cool as from the tower we could see in the distance Osaka castle that we had been to the day before.

On the t-shirt spotting front, I saw an old Japanese man with the words 'Captain Santa' across his jumper.

We had a pic on a bench and asked an old Japanese lady to take a pic of us. As she was takingit the camera was pointing in the wrong direction. It was funny, we posed anyway and the picture that came out didn't even have us on it.

Then we came across a shop that sold t-shirts with English writing on them. I found some good ones, but Eli found this-

Hilarious! The funniest thing I had seen in ages. Needless to say we bought one each!

It was my last day in Osaka today so we headed back to the stadium and I got my bag. We chatted for a while and I left to get the train to Kyoto. It was so sad! I felt like I was saying bye to one of my best friends! We had so much fun and went to so many places. Eli taught me some Japanese, which I thought I was really good at but Eli said not (still can't pronounce Tsurugoaka - the place name where we stayed) and I taught Eli how to talk with a British accent, which he thought he was good at, but wasn't (in our own heads we sounded perfect!)

Anyways I don't tend to make friends that easily so got a little emotional on my way to the train station on my own.

Got the train to Kyoto and was in the hostel there by 8pm. Found the hostel quite easily (it was right next to the station!). I checked in and they said there was a pub crawl on at 8:30pm so I went along. Didn't drink too much but it was good to meet so many people.

Walked back to the hostel about 1am ish with a girl called Helen, who is from London. We planned to go to a shrine the next day as there is some sort of traditional dancing thing on there at 2pm that I saw advertised on the hostel notice board.

Osaka was fab! Now for Kyoto...

Day 7, Osaka Castle

14th October 2008

Day 7

Osaka Castle

Rainy today, but warm. Eli and I went to Osaka Castle. It was beautiful. We got to the top and walked down through each level. It was a bit like a museum with all old armour and artefacts. On the last floor was a dress up bit. We got dressed up as Samurai and were still in Samurai mode when we left.

Then we went to the largest covered shopping place in the world and to an arcade. We played a joint guitar game but I don`t think Eli was very good as we lost quite quickly (ok, I`m crap) but the drum machine game was so much better. Anyway I don`t know if I`ve already mentioned this but we are always looking out for funky Japanese t-shirts with English writing on them. Basically they make no sense and some are hilarious. It`s so funny!

Back nice and early to the hostel today. I bet the staff were pleased.


Tomorrow I am going to Kyoto for a couple of days, then after that onto Tokyo again before I leave on 22nd October.

Osaka is so cool

Day 6, NARA!

12th October 2008

Day 6

Nara

OK so on waking up today I had no idea it was gonna be the BEST DAY EVER! The night before, Eli and I agreed to go to Nara. So I waited for him in the morning for quite a while, and thought he had gone out for the day, but apparently not everyone wakes up at 6:30am. We got the train through some beautiful countryside to Nara, a town about 30 minutes east of Osaka. Nara seemed really tranquil compared to Shinjuku (God, anywhere seems tranquil compared to there!). There were some men with huge mallets making rice cakes and lots of little shops on the way we were walking from the train station to Nara park. When we got to the park there were wild deer just walking around. It was mad! They were just trotting around in between all the people. We bought some deer biscuits (not made from deer) to feed to them. The whole thing was like something out of a dream scene.

The biscuits were wrapped up in paper and one deer ate the paper from Eli`s pack. One dead deer (LOL). Then we saw someone give a deer a whole banana (inc. skin) from their lunch box. The deer struggled, but ate it whole with no chewing. Do deer eat bananas? Two dead deer.

Eli and I were walking on a path through the park and saw a huge queue for something, like a sort of show. Didn`t fancy waiting in that huge queue for whatever was going on so we took a short cut through the woods and went into the area through the exit door to see what all the fuss was about. There were some deer with big antlers just trotting about that everyone was looking at, but we weren`t too bothered so we left. Glad we didn`t queue but now we had to cut through the woods again so the guards near the front wouldn`t see us. But as we were walking back, we walked into a HUGE SPIDERS WEB! God, it was bigger than us! Ew, ew, ew. I may have screamed a little. Eli saw the spider run off. It was black and yellow and HUGE. The rest of the way out of the woods we were chopping our arms about like Buzz Lightyear so we wouldn`t walk into any more spider webs, and were a lot more vigilant. It still makes me a bit quesy thinking about it. Eli saw one later that looked like it, so here is a pic!

Soon though we forgot about this and were in a shop that sold swords, check us! Ready for battle, or ready to face some spiders...

Then we went to a few temples and got to one called Todai-ji, which is the largest wooden structure in the world. We weren`t sure whether to go in or not as there was an entrance fee, but decided to go in anyway. I`m so glad we did.

Eli and I didn`t think anything was insdie the temple, we just assumed there wasn`t so imagine our faces when we were confronted with this -

It was AMAZING - the coolest/craziest/maddest thing I`ve seen in my life!

Eli remembered he was meant to be meeting one of his friends in Osaka, so we left and made our way to the train station. On leaving the park there were some street vendors selling food. Eli suggested I got some Takomiake (spelt wrong), which is a food Osaka is famous for, apparently. So I got some. They look like dough balls with syrup and flakes of something on them. I had trouble cutting one open so I shoved the whole thing into my mouth. While chewing it, I notice a big squishy lump of something inside. "What`s in it?", I mumbled. Eli replied, "flour, vegetables and octopus". OCTOPUS! Yes- the big squishy lump in my mouth was a bug lump of octopus. I didn`t know whether to keep on chewing or spit it out. There was no where to spit it and there were people around so I had no choice. All I could think about was octopus tenticles stuck in my teeth (a bit dramatic maybe?). Eli ate the rest of them (there were about 8). On the last one though I cut it open to look inside abd there it was... a section of octopus tenticle, white with purple suckers on it. Disgusting. I felt ill. I would have preferred to walk into another spiders web than eat another one (ok very dramatic now).

Anyway we dashed back to Osaka and met with Eli`s friend Ichico, and we all went to a club called Cell Block. They had a belly dancing show on, which was fab! Even learnt some salsa steps. I was a bit crap but it was fun. We realised what time it was and if we weren`t back to the hostel by 11pm they lock the doors. It`s a curfew they have you see. If you are out past 11pm you can`t get into the hostel and are effectively homeless for the night. We raced back through the train station, up escalators, down stairs, up stairs, down escalators it was quite comical really. We got on the train and worked out we should make it back just in time. Then the train stopped. It was the last stop for that train for the night so we had to get off and wait for another train in Tennoji station. It was almost 11pm and we were sure we would be sleeping under the stars for the night! We got a train and made a plan that Eli would run to the hostel as soon as we pulled up to the station and I would phone the hostel from the nearest phone box to tell them to wait for us then run to the hostel. Eli dashed off like Speedy Gonzalez and I phoned the hostel. It was after 11pm. No answer. I ran too and when I got there, there was a guy waiting by the door for us, just about to lock up, we made it - just. Close call!

Today was so much fun!

Day 5, OSAKA!

12th October 2008

Osaka

Day 5 in Japan

It took about 8 hours by night bus to get from Shinjuku, Tokyo to Osaka. I arrived about 7 or 8am ish (can`t quite remember as I was knackered). Had to get 2 trains from Osaka station to Tsurugoaka and then walk a few minutes to my hostel (the stadium!). Managed the trains ok somehow and found the stadium quite easily as it was HUGE! Well after all it is a stadium. Check this-



I got there, had a shower (defo needed one) and read someliterature about Osaka that a worker at the hostel had given me. It turned out that there was a parade going on sometime soon. I asked the receptionist about it and a guy who was also staying at the hostel overheard me and was just on his way to the parade too! So I tagged along with him.

His name is Eli (short for Elimelec) and he`s Mexican but has lived in Canada since he was 7. Anyways we went to the parade (called the Midosuji Parade- see above pic). There were some quite crazy sights, like this guy in a bin just walking around the streets!

It was a nice day and it was good to have someone to hang out with plus he speaks Japanese really well and is really good with the subway/train systems and knowing where to go. Bonus! After the parade we went to the Umeda Sky Building. To get to the viewing deck at the top we have to get in the lift. So we went up one way but the Japanese lady said we were in the wrong place, so back down 36 floors and to the other lift, but at the top another lady said it was the wrong place too. Argh! So back down 36 floors and to the other lift... and what a view! It was fantastic. After here we went for some dinner and beers, and after a loud, slightly drunk conversation on the subway went back to the stadium (I like calling it the stadium, it sounds better than `hostel`). It was a good day.

Umeda Sky Building

The View





Eli & Kelly

Me in Osaka