Eytan

2/26/17

(This is going to be another short one, I need to get packing!)

Today was another very fun day of hanging out with my host family, but, unfortunately, it was the last full day in which we got to spend time together. My day began with another nice home cooked breakfast, before getting going for the day. Our first stop, after about a ~45 minute car ride was a local Niigata strawberry farm, that was quite interesting. The strawberries grew in raised hydroponic beds, and you would pay money to walk around and pick the strawberries, that were hanging down over the sides of the beds, and eat them right away (there's a picture, don't worry). When you paid for it, they also gave you this really good white chocolate sauce, to dip the strawberries in. After spending about 30 minutes walking around and eating strawberries, we went to our next destination, a Senbei store. Senbei, in case you didn't know, are giant Japanese rice cakes, that are quite good. At the store, however, they had a thing where you could make Senbei, which I got to do. It was quite fun, and I took a picture of the one I made. After the Senbei store, we went to a giant mall complex, where we got lunch and visited a number of different stores. I also got to visit a Japanese arcade, which are sorta crazy, and saw a well... uh... interesting photo booth, which I had to take a picture of and put here... sorry in advance Senseis! After looking at a number of shops, we went back to my host family's house. After getting home, I found out today was my host mother's birthday, so, with Karen, I made a very nice card for her, of course, after feeling bad about not knowing that today was her birthday. Afterwards, we went out for a last dinner, and Karen's mom's birthday dinner, at a very nice Japanese restaurant. Overall, today was a very good day.

2/25/17

(This is probably going to be a short blog post, because there's not too much to talk about for today.)

Today was the first day in which we really got to hang out with our host families. It was quite fun indeed. My day began with a slightly later than normal wake up, which was nice, because I hadn't slept later than 7:00 this entire trip so far. After waking up, I was treated to a nice breakfast, before getting ready and setting out for the day. After nearly a 1.5 hour drive, through the incredibly pretty Japanese mountains, we arrived at a small noodle shop for lunch, which was pretty good. I got to try curry soba for the first time-- and I loved it. After we finished lunch, we set off to our next destination: a skiing place (all though, we didn't end up going skiing...). When we first arrived at the skiing place, after changing into all our skiing gear, we tried to use these ski-bike things. They were like a cross between a snowboard and a bike, and they were very hard to use. But, after trying, and failing to use them, we switched to these inflatable sleds that were quite fun to use. You slid on them like a penguin, and could steer by leaning left or right. It was a ton of fun. We ended up going down one of the smaller hills a couple of times, and then ended up moving onto one of the big hills. Overall, we probably spent about 3 hours skiing and having fun.

Afterwards, we headed to the place we were going to eat dinner at, which was about a 1.5 hour drive again (towards home though). The place we ate dinner at was actually quite interesting. In front of you, embedded in the table, you had a giant girdle, which was used to make pancakes. But, they weren't normal pancakes, instead they were pretty much giant cakes with a bunch of vegetables inside of them, with a tiny amount of batter inside of them. It was interesting, to say the least. After dinner, we had another ~45ish minute drive home, in which, I learned that Karen, Nina, and their Dad were huge fans of Studio Ghibli. So, cue to proceeding 15 minute discussion, in which I attempted to talk about that in very broken Japanese. After the car trip we arrived home, and I got to hang out with my host family in the living room, and play some standard board games, like Othello and Chess. Overall, today was quite nice.

2/24/17

Today was our second, and last, day of experiencing school life at KJHS. My day began with another home-cooked breakfast, before being taken to the train station, much like yesterday. After taking the Shinkansen for about 30 minutes, we arrived at the station close to school, and again... we took the bus to school from the train station. However, today was a little different in terms of classes and presentations. After hanging out in the meeting room, our sort of 'home base' at school, we went to the gym to have some time with the Sophomores, who were the ones hosting us. In the gym, we had a class-wide jump rope competition. By that, I mean, we had each class (~30 students) in a single, giant jump rope, and we had to see how many jumps in a row we could get before the period was over. My group got the participation prize, if that means anything... After that activity, and the following awards ceremony, my next class was Japanese, which is like our English class back home. After a very confusing lesson (at least, for me) in very complicated Japanese, Karen moved on to her next class, while I went to a different room to help the Sophomores who were travelling abroad (like Karen), with their presentations. They had to presentations on various things relating to Uonuma, the city that KJHS is located in. After two rounds of presentations, it was time for our presentations.

After about 60 students shuffled into the multi-purpose room, a large room with a number of desks and a projector, mainly used for presentations, the presentations began. The first group to go talked about American foods, and had a short bingo-game to go along with it. After that, our group went, and we talked about American geography. The presentation went fairly well, and the students really liked the Jeopardy game that we planned after the presentation. I was the person running the computer, for the Jeopardy game, and there was a little bit of confusion relating to which question the Japanese students had picked. Overall though, it was good. After the first two presentations, we had lunch. Which, today, was a home-made bento box. That definitely topped any of the lunches that I made for myself back home. What was more interesting however, was the fact that we ate in one of the classrooms for lunch-- which isn't something I normally really do. After lunch, we had more presentations that we watched and helped correct, from more Sophomores who were travelling abroad. Afterwards, we continued on with the rest of our presentations, albeit, with a different group of students. The two that went after lunch, which the KJHS students also really enjoyed, were American cartoons, such as Tom and Jerry, Adventure Time, and Superman (from the '60s), to name a few. After that was American dances, which was very amusing, to say the least. After all of the presentations were over, half of the ETHS students stayed in the room to do an activity with the Seniors. Many of them were actually going to American colleges in the fall, as a result, or possibly a cause, they had quite good English. The activities we did were making more Origami (which I had a fun time with), and making these things called 'Smiling Faces,' which were a Japanese new-year tradition, where you put on a blindfold and attempt to put stickers of different parts of a face on the face. Both of them were quite fun.

After that, classes were done for the day, so, we cleaned the school again, before heading back to the homeroom classes. After a very nice goodbye from our homeroom classes, which we had been in for two days, we left the school for the last time. Afterwards, we hung out at the train station for a little bit (Karen and Daniel's student, Mana, are quite good friends, so, they hung out and talked for a little bit, and Daniel and I did as well). We then took the train home, and Karen and I got picked up by her mom, and got taken out to dinner at Karen's favorite place.

2/23/17

I'm going to apologize in advance for this blog post. I was somewhat tired when I wrote it. So... uh... Sorry!

Today was our first day of experiencing school life with our host students, and it was very interesting. My day began with a home-cooked breakfast, made by my host mother, before being taken to the train station to go to school. So far, the food at the home stay has been quite good. That's probably due to a mix of the fact that both my host mother and host grandmother are very good chefs, as well as the fact that I haven't had home-cooked food for almost two weeks. After we arrived at the train station, we took the Shinkansen for about thirty minutes to get to the station close to the school. I have to say, Japan has a pretty amazing train system. If it weren't for the Shinkansen, it would take Karen about 2 hours to get to school using a normal train. After arriving at the station near school, and meeting up with a number of other ETHS students and their host students, we took a short school bus to KJHS, our sister school. Overall, my experience with KJHS today was quite interesting.

When we first got to the school, it seemed like a fairly normal school, at least, until we got inside, where it was pretty clearly a Japanese high school. By that, I mean, people wore inside-shoes inside of the building, and there was a giant locker room when we first got in, in order for people to put their shoes inside of tiny lockers. Also, besides those lockers, there weren't really any lockers anywhere in the school. Most students carried their bags with them, and put them on tiny hooks outside of their classrooms (almost like in Kindergarten!). Additionally, every single student was in a school uniform, which was a jacket, undershirt, and pants for guys, and a jacket, undershirt, and a skirt for girls.

Before we began classes for the day, all of the ETHS students met in a meeting room for a briefing. At least, we would have, if los Señseis hadn't ended up taking the wrong Shinkansen. Regardless, we began our classes for the day, which involved shadowing our host students around for the day. My first class was homeroom, where I was interviewed in English, along with a number of other ETHS students, by many different Japanese kids. It was interesting to say the least. Many of them had great English, although, I did need to speak a little bit slowly, and there was a little bit of confusion. After homeroom, we went to the welcoming ceremonies, in which all of KJHS (about 350 students) welcomed us to their school. After the ceremonies, I continued shadowing my host student for a few classes. The first of which was computer class, in which they did various activities on the computer, such as working in power point, or typing up papers. KJHS is not a very high-tech school, so most of the work is done by hand. After computer class, we went to gym, where we played volleyball on teams with our students. I realized I'm not that good at volleyball, which I previously knew, but, that I was comparatively better than most of the Japanese students, so I seemed kinda good. That was nice, I guess.

After gym class was lunch, where we walked to a separate building where the cafeteria for the school was. Speaking of which, the building that KJHS is in is very interesting. The whole school is shaped like a rectangle, with a large courtyard in the middle, which gave it the shape of a rectangular ring (I guess?). Another important thing to mention was that today, there was about 5 feet total of snow on the ground (take that Evanston!). It was mostly piled into giant mounds, but all of the roads and paths were clear. After trudging back from the cafeteria in between the giant mounds of snow, we went back to the meeting room, in order to prepare for our presentations tomorrow. My group's presentation is on American Geography, which we created a Jeopardy board, and a number of questions for. After a lot of presentation practice, and some arts-and-crafts lessons from some of the teachers, we went back and shadowed our students. My final class of the day (we missed a few classes due to presentation practice) was English. Not to brag, but I am pretty good at many of class English. After finishing up English class, where we played a number of games, all in English of course, we went back to homeroom, in order to make final announcements for the day.

After homeroom, something very interesting happens. A bell rings, and all of the students rush to the ground floor and grab a wide array of mops, brooms, and dustpans, and set out cleaning every corner of the school. Interestingly enough, KJHS, as well as many other Japanese schools, don't employ Janitors, and instead, the teachers learn how to fix stuff is something breaks, and the students are in charge of all of the cleaning. Interesting indeed. After school, we attended Tea Ceremony Club, which is something we also have at ETHS. Japanese tea ceremony is a ritual gesture of friendship, and a very important bit of ancient Japanese culture. It mainly consists of drinking very bitter green tea in a really specific way. After tea ceremony club, we took the Shinkansen back home. After arriving at the station, Karen and I were picked up by her dad, and we went to a supermarket in order pick up some Sashimi (raw fish) for dinner. [Author's note: you can clearly tell I'm really tired at this point... it's been a long day...] Afterwards, we ate another delicious home cooked dinner.

2/22/17

Today was a very interesting day-- to put it the least.

We woke up around 7, and *blah blah blah* ...let me just get to the cool part, other than trains; the host family stuff!

When we first arrived, I was incredibly nervous. Let me correct that: about 30 minutes before we arrived, I was extremely nervous. I mean-- I would have to be talking in Japanese only, I felt like I knew what I was doing way less than the seniors did, and I was really nervous about what my host family would think of me. But, after meeting my host sister Karen, and talking to her for a little bit, I felt right at home. Initially, when I got to my home-stay, there was a little bit of trouble communicating in Japanese. Mainly, because I still felt somewhat nervous to speak in Japanese only for the next few days. I did manage to clear up my trouble communicating (at least a little bit), and whatever I didn't understand, Karen was able to clear up in English, at least, for the most part. After a delicious dinner of home-cooked Japanese food, I presented the gifts that I had been holding on to for the last 10-ish days. Luckly for me, they loved the gifts (at least-- what I understood of the Japanese, they loved them...). After showing them my photo album that I had made before the trip as well, and taking a bunch of pictures with them, I went back to my room to try and catch up on homework, at least, until I was bombarded with cute drawings and questions from Karen's younger sister, Nina.

So far, my host family has been absolutely amazing. They've been understanding when I made mistakes, have been very nice overall. And I'm assuming everyone else is going to say it, so I'm going to one up them. "No, I have the best host family."

2/21/17

(Never mind about the morning thing apparently...)

Today, we toured around Kanazawa, and got some time to shop and enjoy ourselves. The day began with a traditional hotel breakfast (that sounds weird...), that was a buffet of a mix of American breakfast food and Japanese breakfast food. After breakfast, we set off to our first destination, Kenrokuen park, which is right in the middle of downtown Kanazawa. It's a very pretty park, famous for its plum blossoms, which were just starting to come out at this point in time. We walked around Kenrokuen for a bit, and made our way towards the back of the park, where we got to see Seisonkaku villa, an old villa that had been converted into a museum. Inside of it, there was a number of interesting things. Particularly, old Japanese geisha makeup kits, and a lot of dolls and doll clothing. What's particularly interesting about the dolls and the accessories that went with them is how much detail went into each one. For instance, each doll was wearing about 7 - 10 layers of hand-made tiny kimonos, to give you an idea. After visiting the museum, and walking around the park for a little bit longer, we went out to lunch at some nearby noodle shops. I have to say, I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of giant bowls of noodle soup, especially on cold days, like today.

After lunch, we went to the nearby Kanazawa modern art museum, in which we got to see a number of interesting exhibits. Particularly, I enjoyed the exhibit on design, that explored the designs and detailings that went into various products that many people enjoy. It also compared modern and older designs, such as the newer models of Fiat car to their classic 1950s version. Another interesting exhibit was a shallow pond, designed to look like a swimming pool, with a glass bottom that people could walk around underneath. This had an interesting effect of making it look like there were people walking at the bottom of a swimming pool, which was very cool. Afterwards, we went to the Kanazawa geisha district, where we spent a long time walking around. I did a fair amount of shopping, and got to try Miso ice cream. But, something fairly interesting happened in the last 30 minutes we were there. Daniel, Keziah, and I were walking around, when we met up with a small group of people from our trip standing outside a small local shrine, including the double Sensei team, and got a personal tour from a Buddhist preist who was there. We got to see the giant mantra rack inside of the temple, which had a very rare feature; the whole thing was shaped like an octagon, and could spin. This supposedly allowed for the Buddhist monks to read the whole 200,000 pages of scripture in under 30 seconds. The priest was very kind, and we got to take a number of pictures with him. It was quite the cool experience. Afterwards, we went to Kanazawa station for dinner and more shopping, before returning back to the hotel around 8.

Overall, this trip has been incredibly fun so far, and I'm really glad to have gone on it. I am a little nervous for the home stay, but, I'll get back to you on that tomorrow.

2/20/17

(I think I'll probably just start writing these in the morning, it works much better for me...)

Compared to yesterday, today seems quite relaxing actually. Our day began with the final traditional ryokan breakfast, which means I can finally stop writing that on every single blog post! After breakfast, and packing up, we left for Kyoto station a final time as well. There, we picked up lunch at another convenience store, before boarding the train to our next destination, Kanazawa. I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but here, convenience stores, such as 7-11, are called 'コンビニ' (conbini), which is quite cute actually. For the first time in the trip actually, it was raining when we got to Kanazawa, and it continued to do so for the rest of the day. After dropping our bags off at our hotel, which was nearby the central Kanazawa station, we took a bus over to Ninja-dera, an ancient Japanese temple. Ninja-dera, despite having nothing to do with ninjas, is named so because of the amount of traps and hidden corridors inside of the temple. It was built during a period in Japan where buildings taller than two-stories weren't allowed to be built, but it was sneakily built to look like a two-story building, when in reality, it has 4 stories. That was quite interesting, even though the tour was in very fast Japanese, so not many people in our group got it. Afterwards, we took a bus to our next, and final destination for the day, Omicho market. Omicho market was quite interesting because it is a giant complex with a number of different 'streets' built into it, all of which are lined with stalls. After looking at a bunch of raw fish and crabs, and a ton of interesting dried things, we returned to the hotel for the day. Even though we didn't do too much, it was very nice to have a day in which we could relax and catch up on stuff from home.

2/19/17

(Sorry this was also written a day late, I was very tired again-- you'll see why once you read this post.)

Today was a very interesting albeit very long day. Our day started with another traditional breakfast at our hotel before getting going for the day. The first place (of many) that we went to was the famous To-ji pagoda, right in the middle of Kyoto. It's famous for being very pretty, and being the first large pagoda built in Kyoto. The surrounding park is very pretty as well, which I took a panorama of, which is pictured below. After walking around the various shrines for a little bit, we got to visit the inside of the Pagoda, which was quite a pretty place, but, unfortunately, they didn't allow pictures inside of the Pagoda, so I didn't get any. After continuing to explore the park a little bit more, we left for our next destination, another shrine, which is less famous, but arguably much more beautiful, Kitano Tenmangu. Again, the shrine had a very pretty surrounding park, which in Kitano Tenmangu's case, was dotted with plum trees, which were quite pretty as well. After getting some interesting complimentary tea, and lunch after we left the shrine, we left for our next destination, the Ninja Museum.

Now, when I say Ninja museum-- you probably think of a normal museum about ninjas, no, my friend, the Ninja museum was actually an old Japanese inn where the heads of various clans, ruled by the emperor, called Daimyos, stayed. (I'm not quite sure why it's called the 'Ninja Museum' actually). It was still pretty cool. The tour was done in Japanese a little bit above the level that I can understand, so it was difficult to follow along with the tour. It was still nice though. After going through our tour of the Ninja museum, we went to our final destination, Nijo-Jinya shrine. If you don't know, this is the shrine with the iconic tunnel of the red Shinto gates, a.k.a. that one image that you see on like every tourism site remotely relating to Japan. We got some time to roam around the shrine, so my group decided to go up through the red gate tunnel. However, once we got to the top, we decided to take some side paths leading away from the normal trail, and ended up in a very pretty giant bamboo forest. After continuing walking, we ended up at a Shinto graveyard, although, we did not go in, it was still very pretty, as the sun was starting to set. Daniel and I headed back, while the rest of our group continued down the path. On the way back, we saw more of the gates, and eventually met back up with the rest of the group at the train station. Afterwards, we returned back to Kyoto station for dinner, this time, my group had a very nice, very interesting, Japanese omelette place.

2/18/17

(Sorry for this blog being written a day late, we got back at about 11:30, and I didn't feel like writing a blog that late!)

Today was the first day of walking around Kyoto... well... not really. Of course, the first day in which we're staying in Kyoto, we took a bullet train back up to Nagoya to visit some traditional Japanese villages (more on that later). If you want specifics, because I know how much everyone loves to hear me talk about trains, We took the subway from the stop near our hotel back to Kyoto station (if you'll remember, that's where we went the night before to get dinner... or maybe not, you might be reading this from top to bottom... uh... just read the next one, ok?), and then we took the bullet train from Kyoto station back to Nagoya. Before getting on the train, I got lunch again from another Japanese 7-11 (which are still amazing... I'll have to take a picture at some point). After arriving in Nagoya, we took a bus up into the Japanese mountains, which was about 2 hours long. At least, to our first destination, which is what my site report was on, Shirakawa-Go. If you want more specifics about the city, feel free to go and read it.

Shirakawa-Go was a very interesting and very pretty old city. It's very famous for its large thatched roofs, and the absurd amounts of snow it gets. When we were there today, there was about 3 feet of snow on the ground. I took a picture of the insane amount of snow, at the next town we went to, which was all of the snow that was cleared from the paths, pushed into a big pile. Everyone split into small groups, and got about an hour and a half of free time to walk around. My group went to some small souvenir stores, got some interesting snacks, visited the local temple, and took lots of pictures. After getting back on the bus, we took a thirty-minute ride to our next destination, another small village called Gokayama. It had similarly thatched roofs, but it was much smaller. However, that one specific weekend of the year that we went, the entire town was lit up by about two-thousand candles shoved into tiny pockets in the snow. Which, created a pretty good picture, if I must say so myself. After trying some of the complimentary sweet red-bean soup, walking around the village for a bit, and watching a dance performance by some of the village people, we returned to the bus to get going home.

2/17/17

Today was mainly a day of traveling via train to our next destination, Kyoto. As expected, we had an extravagant (last) breakfast at Shibu Onsen, before getting onto a bus back to the Shibu train station. We then proceeded to take a train at 9:00 AM (which I'm going to refer to as 'slow planes' from now on) back to Nagano, where we got lunch in the slow plane station. I got mine from a Japanese 7-11, which are actually very nice super markets here. By that, I mean that they are much nicer, not that every other supermarket is just worse. Weirdly enough, they have prepackaged fresh sushi meals, which I probably wouldn't trust an American 7-11 to make. Afterwards, we boarded a moderately-slow plane (bullet train) going towards Nagoya. That was a 3-hour trip through the Japanese mountains, which are quite pretty. Afterwards, we then took another moderately-slow plane into Kyoto, before boarding a subway train to our hotel, another ryokan in Kyoto, which we arrived at around 4:15 PM.

After putting our bags down in our rooms, we went back to the subway to take another slow plane back to Kyoto station. Kyoto station connects to a massive mall complex, which is quite nice. There's a photo of the main area below. We climbed a giant staircase up to the 11th floor of the building, which was outside (the photo below is from the top of it). We then proceeded to split into small groups for some free-time around the mall. My group ate at a really good ramen place back down on the 10th floor of the building. After exploring the mall for a bit (we didn't end up buying too much), we took the subway back to our hotel.

2/16/17

Today was a day that was spent mostly relaxing around Shibu Onsen. Our day started with a very nice breakfast, in traditional Japanese yakatas, that was much shorter than the hour-and-a-half dinner yesterday, at a measly 45 minutes. It was also extremely good food, similarly to the night before. Most people in our group decided to do the 9-bath challenge, where you basically spend the entire day bathing in nine different baths scattered around the main street. However, I'm not personally a huge fan of Japanese-style bathing, which I tried thrice on this trip so far. (Author's Note: That's probably the first time I've ever actually used the word 'thrice'). So, most of the day was spent having some much needed alone time, which I haven't gotten to have on this trip so far.

Around 12:30, when most of the people on our group decided to take a break from bathing, we went to a local noodle-place, which was very good local food. Luckly, I decided quickly that I didn't feel like sitting on the traditional floor-pads, so I got one of the few normal seats at a table, which my knees definitely later thanked me for. After lunch, we walked around the town a little bit, and found a gelato place. Picture it this way: 10 people, including Mr.VanKrey and Yokota Sensei, sitting around a tiny table, in Japanese robes, in a remote town in the middle of the Japanese mountains, eating gelato. An interesting experience to say the least. After lunch, and gelato, I continued hanging out in the room, while others went out bathing. Dinner was pretty similar to the night before, and took an hour-and-a-half. It was pretty good, and luckly for me, there was much less seafood this time.

(Author's Note II: I haven't been putting that many pictures in my blog, other than the time that I posted about H̛͚̲̮̰̿̕☒̩̲̫̙̣͓̬̤͇͒̐͡͞N̸̢̦̔͂ͩ̓̓̏I͎͍̗̓̐͆ͭ́͛̆͟ ̵̻̳͎͓̩̖̯͖̅͐ͦ̇̌̓̀S̖̼͇̤͎̪̮̩̈́̋͋͠Ą͉̮̗̻͖̪͒ͩ͆̏☒͈̤̬̲̤̞͙̯͉͂̇͗ͧ☒̱̀̍͆̕ ̣̞͎̼̦̃͛̎ͥͨ͝C̒̅̃̈̽͏̴̗͎̫̣̺͔ͅŐͦ͏̘͔̖ͅ☒̖͙̫̺̯ͬͫ́͞Ȅ͕̞̦̱͙̘̲̠͋̾̽͑ͣͥ̒S̴̡͇̬̲̫ͧ̂̎̀ ͐̅̀̅̈̉ͧ͜͏͕̱͔̲̬̰R̈͋̓ͪ͠҉̱͕͙U͉͈͉̫̹ͥͨN̸̡͖̬̦͙̞͖̝̘̼ͤ͐͐☒̮̼͔̬̃̔͌̐̿̅̈☒̣͍̜͈̖͇̭̥̒̆̉ , so I've decided that I should put more pictures into my blog... so... enjoy!)

2/15/17

Today was mainly a day of travelling and settling in. The day began with the last breakfast at our Tokyo youth hostel, afterwards, we packed all of our stuff up to get ready to leave. After failing to pack everything into my suitcase, and having to expand into a second bag (I hope my family's ready for a lot of gifts!), we left for the train station. Two trains later, we arrived at Tokyo station, where we boarded a Shinkansen (bullet train). Afterwards, we finally arrived at the place we are staying for the next two days, Shibu Onsen, a traditional Japanese hotel, called a 'Ryokan,' in Japanese. The rest of the day was fairly relaxed, up until the 1.5 hour long dinner, which was definitely the best food that I had had so far this trip!

2/14/17

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2/14/17 (Bonus Post)

I'm not sure if you knew this, but Tokyo has an absurd amount of vending machines... well... everywhere. I decided to count the number of vending machines that I saw today (with the help of Daniel)... and got...

[Drum Roll]

...101 vending machines. (That was just today!)

2/13/17

Our first actual day spent in Tokyo definitely was an interesting one. After eating a traditional Japanese breakfast at the youth hostel, we set off for the day. Our first stop on the vast Tokyo train system was Ume park, which was very pretty. The park consists of a number of sprawling paths going through a large number of cherry blossom trees, most of which were only partially in bloom, due to the cold-ish weather of the Japanese winter. Our next major stop for the day was to Harajiku shrine, or, at least, the area around Harajiku shrine. We split up into a number of small groups, and explored around many different stores near Harajiku shire. While I did not personally go to the shrine, many people from our group did. There were a lot of stores that I ended up going into with my group. To name a few, Kiddy Land, a store that sold a bunch of 'cute' Japanese things, Daiso, a hyaku-en store (basically a dollar store), and a cosplay store, to find a wig for Mr.VanKrey. After that, we took the train to Koishigawa Park. Which, surprisingly, had a very large roller-coaster in the middle of Tokyo. Before our group decided to go on the roller coaster (myself and a few others not included), we went up on the Ferris Wheel in the park, and got a great view of Tokyo. After the sun began to set, we headed back to the Youth Hostel for a traditional Japanese dinner. After dinner, and a short break, we headed back out to go the the light-up festival at the Caretta Center, or at least, right outside of it.

2/11/17 - 2/12/17

After saying my final goodbyes, and enduring the embarrassment of my parents, I began the first leg of my journey-- the O'hare Wolfgang Puck, which has a surprisingly good breakfast pizza. After eating an early lunch, we boarded the plane. And... after 14 hours of on-and-off doing homework and playing Dwarf Fortress, we finally arrived. At that point, we arrived at 1:30 AM Chicago time. We had to go through customs and get our rail passes, and by the time we boarded the train into Tokyo, it was 3:00 AM Chicago time. After navigating the confusing Tokyo train system, we arrived at the Tokyo Central Youth Hostel, at about 5:30 AM Chicago time. As I am currently writing this, it's 10:30 PM Tokyo time, which is about 7:30 AM Chicago time. I have been awake for about 25 hours. I should probably go to sleep now...