sam

Day 1

We arrived at the Dallas airport after a two and a half hour flight. I tried to sleep during the flight but I kept getting waken up by the flight attendants passing out drinks and collecting trash. I plan on getting a lot of sleep on the 14 hour flight cause i'm pretty tired right now. I'm not letting myself get too excited for Japan because the flight is gonna be so long.

While on the flight I read the entirety of Catcher in the Rye which is all the English homework I had to for the first week, and I still had 3 hours left after doing that. I played a little bit of smash on the plane with Aidan but I wasn't sitting too near him so that didn't last too long. The food was pretty good for airplane standards, this beef with rice they gave was real good. I did not sleep nearly as much as I hoped with like an hour of sleep at most. The had power outlets for each seat which made managing battery super easy. After the first four hours it started to really set in how long we were gonna be on the plane.

It took a long time to get to the youth hostel but once we got there it was a lot nicer than I expected. The view was also really nice at night. I was so tired I fell asleep within like 5 minutes of getting in bed.

Day 2

We woke up and ate the hostel food and it was pretty good. The eggs especially were really good. After breakfast, we headed off to the Borderless Art Installation. It was full of light shows and they were really cool and fun to watch. At one point, we laid down on a net for one of the shows and that was pretty chill. I mostly walked around with a few people and we all looked at the light shows together. After the museum we went to the Ueno garden and temple and the flowers there had me feeling a certain way. I had a whole self realization moment while we were there. After the garden we went to a big marketplace street with a whole bunch of stores. I held off on spending because we are going to one of the biggest store streets tomorrow. I spent a whole bunch of time trying to find a certain type of candy while we were at the store but I couldn't find it. Lastly, we went to the Tokyo Skytree and by that point I was so tired that I was just out of it. I took a couple photos then just sat down for a bit. After this we went back to the hostel for some good sleep.

Day 3

We started the day off with the Meiji shrine. It was a very peaceful and serene place but I didn't feel as affected by it as the Ueno garden and temple from yesterday. It was really nice to walk through the forest which seemed so unusual in such a big city. The rain and especially the cold made it hard to fully immerse myself in the experience. The waterproof shoes that I have really came in clutch during it though. After that we all went shopping and I picked up a nice white hoodie and some fresh shoes. So far, I have been hesitant to wear the new shoes out of fear of getting them dirty. After that we went to a sushi conveyor belt place for lunch and the sushi was really good and really cheap compared to sushi in America. We then went to a samurai museum and they showed us a show of a samurai and a ninja which was pretty cool. I honestly don't remember much about the museum because the robot fighting show we went to afterwards just completely overshadowed it. The robot show was just insane and purely chaotic in every way. Me and Evan in the front row were just getting hyped the whole time and I got a couple high fives from the performers for dancing with them while in my seat. I really cannot describe the show in any other way then pure chaos but that's what made it fun. Lastly, we went to Shibuya for dinner and I got to try tonkatsu and it was super good while being pretty cheap. I found it interesting how they just give you a whole mound of cabbage on your plate. I really have been blown away by the amount of food we've gotten in restaurants because I thought it would be so much less but its been a lot. Anyway, afterwards we just went back to the hostel for some good sleep and to pack since tomorrow we will be heading to Aomori.

Day 4

Today was a very lowkey and peaceful day without too many activities to rush around to. We started with the usual morning routine but I am now starting to realize that I'm adjusted to Japanese time because I am starting to feel real tired in the mornings, much akin to a school day morning. After eating breakfast and getting ready for the day it was immediately time to pack everything since I did minimal packing the night before. The shinkansen ride to Aomori was very relaxing and a good time to get some work done which I did not do much of. The bento box I got for lunch was the chicken one and it came with rice with a bunch of toppings that I don't know the name of. It wasn't bad but it just caught me off guard. The train moved so much faster than any Chicago train that I've ever been on it was crazy. It started off at about the same speed and I was a little disappointed but then the the train just about doubled in speed and you really noticed it. When we got to Aomori, the first thing that really blew me away was the fanciness of the hotel. It really didn't feel like we belonged there. For the entirety of the dinner we had I was terrified of doing something wrong regarding the culture around eating. After dinner we went on a tour bus to a frozen waterfall which was super cool to look at since it's not something I had ever seen before. After that we went back to the hotel and I was too tired to do anything else so I just went to sleep.

Day 5

Today we started off with sn