Don't know what to write, i'm just excited to be going. I'm a little scared, but very excited at the same time. We are all preparing our site right now, and reality is finally sinking in - i'm going to japan.
Saturday, February 12, 2017 - The plane ride was a whopping 12 hours long to get to japan. I watched so many movies on the ride including Kubo and the two strings, the town, and doctor strange. We are arrived in Narita airport at 430 local time, but 1 am Chicago time. I was so tired originally but I have energy now for some reason. I haven't slept in more than 23 hours now. After arriving at the airport we spent a lot of time getting our rail passes in order, and from there we took three trains to get to our youth hostel. At the hostel I saw a Buddhist shrine in the front courtyard, I'll post a picture of it tomorrow. Also at the hostel is the Japanese bathing situation which was cool. For those not familiar, it's a community bath and everyone's naked. It takes a little getting used to, but after the initial awkwardness we were all fine with it. You have the option of taking a regular shower and then getting into the bath, or the Japanese way were you sit on a bucket naked and pour buckets of hot water on yourself. The general theme is you get clean before getting into the big bath because it would dirty up the water for everyone else. Very chill.
My first full day in japan is something i won't be forgetting for a while. I tossed and turned through the night, and eventually gave up on going to full sleep at around 5 am. I watched Tokyo through the window in our room, and saw as the buildings began to light up with the sunrise. In the distance you could see the mountain range surrounding it on all sides, and from the hallway window you could see mount fuji. One note on the city itself is that it is the largest, most dense place I have ever seen. I think Eyton made this comparison when we were in a ferris wheel, that, "It's like someone created a procedurally generated city, and set the borders to maximum." As far as the eye can see are buildings, and then mountains with no in between.
Anyway, After washing my hair in the bath, we went to a 7 pm breakfast. The meal had rice, korokke, eggs, and other japanese foods that i can't remember because i didn't eat them. At this time I was still feeling a little stomach sickness, but i had to eat. During breakfast i talked with my bunkmates Noah, Jeff, and Max about various things like the trip, and what we would be doing that day. We also realized that we had to finish all of our food, because in Japan it is considered rude if we leave anything on our plate. For the most part we were all fine with this, except for the container of natta that someone brought along. Natta is fermented beans with a sticky sauce coating them. They are plain, with a nasty aftertaste. After we all ate our share, we went out for the day.
Our first destination was a park with blooming plum trees. Before this though I have to mention when we stepped out into the crowd to walk to the train. For context, our youth hostel is right in the middle of tokyo, with a minor train station in walking distance. The youth hostel is on the 18th and 19th floor of a building with shops on the ground floor, and with other business that i'm not sure of throughout the building. I think it is apartments. As the group stepped out into the street, I began to notice how quiet it was. As we walked, the only sounds that could be heard were the clicking of shoes on the sidewalk. The amount of people and the amount of silence did not match each other at all.
Once we got off our stop near the park, we walked on to this little street and immediately bought potatoes that smelled great as we walked past them. They were completely sweet on the inside, and were huge. When arrived to the park after a short walk, we took a group photo then split up to explore the park. I explored the park for a while by myself, seeing groups of trippers occasionally. From the park I saw a high school gym class going on, which seemed very serious. Also walking around I saw some people filming, and walked next to a kids park. I think I have photos of this, but if not i will describe it. The park was clearly for kids only, as you could see parents standing on the sidelines, and i was amazed the buildings that they had. Everything was climbable, and everything looked very fun. It was very different from the playgrounds back home.
Walking around the park more i saw a baseball field, a tennis court, and other fitness related equipment. As i was walking along the same path, i came to a group equipment like you see on the lake coast at home, with the express purpose of exercise. Pull up bars, stretching tables, sets of steps ect. What amazed me most was that the main group of people there were elderly people. They were stretching or walking, and it gave me a sense that everyone here had a big commitment to exercise. There were almost no fat people that I saw. I don't have any picture of the elderly people stretching, because i think they would have yelled at me. After watching for a while, i continued out of the park, and down a little street parallel to it. In the states this street would have been an alley, but here it was a full on road, with houses right next to it. It gave me a good sense of what a japanese neighborhood could look like.
After the park, we went to shinjuku, in the middle of downtown tokyo. We were allowed to explore the city for an hour and a half. I went around with Max, Jeff, and Noah exploring the downtown alleys and looking for something to eat. After that, we were allowed more time to explore, so i went with Daniel and Keziah to meiji jingu, a shrine to the emperor who reformed japan. It was extremely beautiful, and oddly quiet, being just a block from the busy downtown area.
After coming back, we went to an amusement park in tokyo, and rode a ferris wheel and a rollercoaster. At this point I was jet lagged under the ground, and i don't remember much after that. My throat also started to burn a little bit, so I stayed back when they went to go the evening light up after dinner. Thanks sensei for that.
14
The second full day in Japan happened! The jet lag still had a hold on me towards the end of today, but not nearly as much as yesterday. For breakfast today there was corokke, omelet, eggs with rice, and some japanese salad. Also ham. After breakfast Mr. van krey gave us 30 minutes to finish whatever work we still had to do, and to get ready. Our first destination for the day was Ueno park to see the japanese national museum. According to Mr. Van Krey, it is the smithsonian of japan. After actually venturing inside, I can tell that yes, it is massive, and filled with all types of cultural artifacts. There is art, swords, armor, blankets, pots, and many these were deemed to be literal national treasures. It was pretty awesome to see. The museum store was also cool, and i bought a little book on calligraphy. From there we went to see the Ueno Toshogu shrine, which enshrines an important shogun. Many temples have special calligraphers to sign special books signifying that you’ve visited that specific shrine and payed respects. Many people took this opportunity to buy a book and get it signed. I later got a book at another shrine the same day. After the temple, we went to the Ueno park train station and split up to go eat at different places. After eating, we went to the historical black market alley system, and looked for things to buy. I ended up getting a t shirt with some cool kanji on it. The next destination was a temple in the center of tokyo. It was truly massive, with a two story lantern marking the entrance. We were given two hours to run around, and most of us went to get our temple books signed. This is where i bought my temple. Also shout out to Cole and Gianni for being massive grammar nazis. Hitler would be proud. Anyway, I took lots of photos with Keziah and tiara, and we had fun.
After coming back to the hostel for some dinner, I neglected to do my blog and we ventured out to the skytree. The skytree is a massive observation tower that overlooks tokyo. At this point in the night we were all feeling tired, but the view was pretty cool. Everyone was up there for what seemed like an hour from the jet lag, and when me and Tailor tried to leave we got lost immediately. After finding our way back, we all rode the subway home. It was a great day, I will miss Tokyo when we leave.
15
Today we did a bit of traveling. After bathing in the youth hostel for the last time, we said goodbye, and took trains to the shinkansen station. The shinkansen is the ultra fast rail system in japan, over 200 km an hour. When we arrived at the shinkansen station, we bought some fancy bento boxes to eat on the train. Mine was sashimi wrapped in leaves. The first one i ate with the leaf on, and i’m still not sure if i was supposed to do that. I ate the rest with the leaf off so it’s probably ok. The ride was 40 minutes, and from tokyo we arrived in snowy nagano prefecture. The environment changed surprisingly quickly on the short train ride. The alps now surrounded us here. From that station, we transferred onto a slower local line. This would take us to Shibu Onsen, which is a 1,300 year old bathing town. It has natural hot springs that we are going to use. After getting off the train, the we were taken to our ryokan (hotel). I was floored when i arrived at the town. It was an actual mountain paradise. The entire town was filled with ancient architecture, and our hotel has traditional tatami mat accommodations. We were required to put on slippers as the tatami mats are very sensitive, and our rooms had traditional futon beds. After getting settled into our room, the hotel bus took us to the mouth of the monkey park trail. From there we enjoyed a nice walk through the snowy woods to the monkey park. There were maybe a hundred monkeys there, attracted by the flax seed being thrown down by the employee. They were climbing, running, jumping, fighting, and just being cute little guys. They would run right next to you if they wanted to get away from a fight. There was also a little hot spring for them by the river. One was bathing, and the teachers had a field day documenting it. After walking back to the mountain street, we waited for the bus to come pick us up. While waiting, i went to a local shrine and took photos of it in the snow. They are on my phone but i will try to get them. Back at the hotel, they gave us tradition yukata to wear (they look like kimono kind of but different) and we ate a truly japanese meal. We arrived to the dining hall all in our yukata, and were presented with wave after wave of delicious food. SO MUCH FOOD. It was all in small portions as well, but they just kept bringing it out. Also, shout out to Jeff for being the human garbage disposal and eating so much of other people's food that they couldn't finish. In japan it’s rude to leave any food leftover, so we were all saved by that. Little side note about the futons, the pillows are made of beans and stuff. They are surprisingly comfy. At this time during the meal i couldn’t help but to feel extremely grateful to the people that let me be here. Mr. Van Krey for planning the whole trip and being an awesome guide, Yokota sensei for being a insight into the culture, and my friend cole for convincing me to take japanese in the first place. Also shout out to Ms. Ogura for helping me with japanese even though she definitely didn’t have to. At dinner they explained the bathing situation.
There is an onsen in the hotel itself where you go to get clean before going to the other onsens. The town has 9 public onsens that you can go to with the hotel key. They also give you a special towel that you can stamp at each bath house to show that you went to it and bathed. My group was planning to hit all 9 in a speed run. 9 dragons lol. After dinner i went to the hotel onsen, then went to bed listening to the mountain stream passing by.
16
Today we bathed and bathed and bathed. We got dressed in our yukata and hit the town with our wood sandals clopping around. It was extremely relaxing, and very fun to chill with everyone. Some of the baths were scalding hot, so it was a challenge, but we did hit all nine before lunch. We conquered the nine dragons. There is also a tenth stamp at a temple at the top of a long flight of stone stairs. Once we climbed them though, it was all worth it. For lunch i went with Alex to an authentic soba noodle shop. We also hit the bread store and got some really nice japanese treats. Shout out to him for being my dude. When we came back to the hotel i took a very long nap, then got ready for another traditional dinner. We all wore our yukata, and talked about everything we did that day. After dinner, some of us went out for a walk in our yukata. Seeing more of the town at night for last time was fun. Shout out to victor and alex for being bros. After the walk i went to bed peacefully. Tomorrow we will be traveling to kyoto, cyu. (;-;)
17
Friday 25
I woke for another early morning at 6 o'clock. I heard the sound of haruki's family rushing around me as they went through their morning routine. I went to breakfast tired, but ready to eat. We had miso soup and nigiri, and some cold tea. At 7 me and Haruki started walking to the train. We used the long walk to talk about our different schools, and compare them. It was an interesting conversation. We arrived at school about 30 - 40 minutes later, and he dropped me off at the meeting room with all the eths students. After our meeting about the presentations we had later in the day, we went with our host students to the gym to do some games with them. Again we did the warm up (very fun) and then broke into groups to compete in a jump rope competition. Basically, a team of 20 people had to jump all at the same time over a really long rope. It was hard to get more than one or two jumps in a row. We all had a lot of fun trying to get the highest number, but in the end we came third (out of three lol). After gym the eths students split up to hear some presentations that the sophomore students had. I was really impressed with their english speaking ability, and the quality of their presentations. They were all about helping Uonuma’s economy. We gave feedback to all of them, then i had an opportunity to play guitar(we were in the music room). I showed them some classic american music Deep River Blues. They seemed to like it. After the period ended, we went to hear the first round of eths presentations to the students. The first was a bingo game about american food. They got into it, and everyone got to eat some candy which is always fun. After them there was a geography presentation, followed by a jeopardy game. Once these two finished, we went again to the music room to hear some more presentations by KJ students. Again they were very professional, and they demonstrated their good english speaking ability. After these we had the final round of ETHS presentations! I was excited and nervous, but i knew it was going to go fine. My group went first. Ours was about cartoons and anime, and how they interplay. I talked last about modern cartoons and how they differ from modern anime. I showed them clips of my favorite cartoon adventure time which they all seemed to enjoy (physical humor and fart jokes work). The last group was about American dance, and showing popular dances to the students. It was a great ender as it got every up and moving, and every got into it. They showed them some moves (Dab on that S**t), and in the end got into a big circle to dance to a song. Mr. Vankrey also took the opportunity to take some 360 pictures.
26
Finally had a whole day with my host family without school work. We woke up late and well rested. Today we are going to go to a mountain!! We had breakfast, then got ready to go. I put on all my coats and my boots, and we got in the car to go. It was haruki, mitsu, and jiichan (grandpa). Ji-chan drove us to the mountain base where we rode a gondola up to the top of this huge mountain. It was packed with skiers and snowboarders: no one else just for a hike. When we got up to the top we immediately noticed a observation deck on the highest ridge. We were determined to get to it, and so me and haruki made the climb. We saw a path with footsteps in the snow, and followed that up to the ridge. At the ridge top the path made a T, one way towards the observation deck, and another towards the top of the mountain. What looked like a track that we could follow turned out to just be a snow mobile track, but it worked out. We made our way to the closed observation deck, and realized that more than half of it was snowed in. We climbed the icy steps, and enjoyed the view. After coming back, we followed the snowmobile tracks towards the ridge of the mountain. The path was very long, but once we made it the view was totally worth it. From here you could see all of uonuma and the alps surrounding it. You could also see KJ, and Haruki's house. At the very top it was also dead silent. I will post pictures if my camera doesn’t act up. When we returned to the base of the mountain, we drove to a ramen shop that mitsu wanted to go to. He then cried a little and wanted to go another ramen shop (his favorite). He’s so cute!! We went to this shop, and enjoyed the best ramen i’ve ever had in my life. Mitsu seemed happy :) After the shop, we returned home, and rested for bit before going out to play in the snow. After having a snowball fight, we started constructing an igloo of massive proportions. We built it into the side of a massive snow pile. For reference, this area routinely gets 2-3 meters of snow, and currently it is about 2. So a lot of snow. After we all got tired we went inside to rest. Me and Haruki watched some episodes of arrow in his room, then we had some dinner. We stayed up late watching japanese variety shows and talking. Tomorow they said they will take me skiiing!!! I am so excited.