Jeff

Home stay 02/22-26/2017

02/21/2017

First we went to Kenrokuen, which is one of the three great gardens of Japan. I had researched this site so I gave a presentation (in English) about the garden. Within the garden there was a museum that we had to take our shoes off the enter. It wasn't heated and when I got there they were all out of slippers so my feet were very cold. I spent most of our time there stealing the sock style slippers from fellow trip members feet. The museum was very interesting but it was very hard to focus. After leaving the park, we ate udon in a small restaurant near the park. The waiters were very nice and the food was very good. We felt bad cause we paid with 10,000 Yen bills and made the waiter give us change. Since tipping isn't really allowed in the Japanese culture, so we gifted our waiter a Chicago Cubs world series Pes. After lunch we went to a 21st century museum and saw some very cool art. They had an exhibit where they showed groups of objects that were designed for different markets. Half of the objects were labeled design and the other half were labeled kogei which means traditional. The coolest part was when they had two fiat 500's made 50 years apart from each other. After we left the museum we went to a geisha district, and I got shown around a very cool Buddhist sutra storage temple. We met this really cool priest, and he showed us the original prints of the translated sutra. There were over 200,000 pages of sutras. They were kept in an eight sided building, he let us rotate it one full rotation and said that we had done the equivalent of reading all of the pages. He then blessed us and told us that something good would happen to us. We ate dinner in the train station and went back to the hotel to work on our presentations for our sister school.

02/20/2017

Today we took a two hour bullet train from Kyoto to Kanazawa. We arrived just after lunch and dropped our luggage off at our hotel. We then headed to Ninja Dera, which was another cool ninja house. We had another all Japanese tour, but this time our tour guide spoke very quickly and we had a lot of trouble understanding anything she was saying. It was raining pretty hard and we had to walk and take buses everywhere we were going. We waited in the rain for our bus and then sensei told us that the first bus that came was the wrong bus, but yokota sensei told us it was in fact the correct bus. We then waited in the rain for an additional 10 minutes. After our bus ride, we went to a fish market and looked around for an hour. Because of the unfortunate weather, we turned in early and finally got a good nights sleep.

02/19/2017

Today was our last day in Kyoto. We spent the day traveling and looking at different sites around the city. Our first site was To-Ji Pagoda. To-Ji is the tallest wooden structure in Japan. At To-Ji we met one of Vankrey sensei's old students who is teaching English to Japanese students and making quilts. It was cool to see the ways that the Japanese program I am part of has changed peoples lives. Next we went to a 7-11 and ate lunch. After lunch we went to a Ninja house that had lots of trap doors and hidden entrances that was really cool. We were given a tour in all Japanese and we had to struggle through the complex language that they were using to explain the intricate history of the house. After our tour we got to go to a really cool shrine that had orange gates going up the entire side of the mountain. Me and a couple of my friends decided that we would go as far up the mountain as we could and we wondered into a graveyard. It was a really cool experience and on the way down the back of the mountain we got to see the sun set from the top of a jungle gym that let us see over the entire city.

02/18/2017

Today was our first full day in Kanazawa. We spent the entire day at Gokayama. We took a train into Nagoya station and took a but for 3 hours to get there. Gokayama is a village with steep thatched roof buildings that are in the middle of the mountains. The entire bus ride up there our tour guide was giving us information about the trip in all Japanese and it was fun to try and understand what she was saying. When we got to the first village we walked around and looked at all of the buildings. It was really interesting and looked awesome because it was snowing. We left and went to the other village where they were lighting candles in the snow and on top of the buildings. When we got there the sun was just beginning to go down. We got to eat red bean soup with mochi in it and looked at the village with thousands of candles lit all over it. We then had another 3 hours on the bus to get back to the Ryokan. The trip lasted the entire day and we got back at around 11:30 pm.

02/17/2017

Today we left the Ryokan at 9am and took an express train from Nagano to Nagoya. We went through the mountains past small villages and factory towns. It was a very different side of Japan than we had seen before. Our train to Nagoya was delayed by ten minutes, so when we arrived we only had three minutes to get to the other platform to catch our train to Kyoto. We couldn't all make it in time so we missed our train with our seats reserved and had to take a train in the non reserved seat section. I managed to get on to the train that was right next to the smoking area, so our car reeked of cigarettes. After our thirty minutes on the train, we took a private subway to a part of Kyoto closer to our hotel. We are staying in another Ryokan. It is much quieter and a little nicer than the last one. We went to the Kyoto mall for dinner and I ate some very good Ramen. We turned in a little earlier than usual and are very tired from the long day of travel.

02/16/2017

Today we had no specific plans so we spent the day relaxing. There are nine bath houses around the Ryokan and my group of four decided that we would visit all nine in a row. They were all different. Some were much hotter than others and sometimes we had to add cold water to be able to bare the heat. After we completed the nine baths challenge, we were given a towel to stamp at every bath house and we one some of the few people who got it filled all the way up. After we completed our nine bath challenge, we went to a soba place and got some really good food. We had another amazing meal at the Ryokan for dinner. Tomorrow we leave Nagano and head to Kyoto.

02/15/2017

Today we left Tokyo at 9 am and headed to Nagano. We took a Shinkansen (Bullet Train) from Tokyo and were in Nagano one and a half hours later. On the train we ate Bento Boxes and I got some work done. In Nagano we are staying in an Ryokan which is a hot springs lodging. When we arrived at the Ryokan we immediately left to go to the monkey park. It was very interesting to see the monkeys walking inches from us as if we were one of them. They were very intelligent looking, they would climb up the side of the mountain and then slide down the side of the water pipes. We then returned to the Ryokan and bathed in the natural springs.

02/14/2017

Today we went to Ueno Park and went to the Japanese National museum. The swords in the museum were super interesting, you could tell that they were hand made with care and were functional as well as works of art. We went to a shinto shrine in Ueno park that was fully coated in gold leaf. After we left the park we explored the streets of Ueno and ate lunch. We went to a food court and had some Japanese fast food and then went to the street market to explore. We saw a lot of fake exotic clothing. We then went to a shrine in Kaminari and got to see more street culture. We later went to the Tokyo Sky Tree and got a view from 450 meters above Japan.

02/13/2017

Today was the first full day in Japan. We woke up at 6:30 am and ate a unique breakfast consisting of sausage, eggs, seaweed, fermented soybeans, and rice. I was almost entirely adjusted to the time change and had little difficulty staying awake during the day. We started by going to a park to just look around. It was a very clear day and we were able to see Mt. Fuji quite clearly. There was a TV show being recorded at the park and Max DJ and I were interviewed for the show. They had us try a snack similar to pretzels. There was some sort of sweet coating on it. It was a very interesting experience. The show is airing on March 4th at noon on TV Japan.

02/12/2017

Today was a very overwhelming and tiring day. I only slept 1 or 2 hours on the plane and spent most of the time doing homework and working on my photo album for my host family. The food on the plane wasn't bad but it was always way too hot. Once we landed we ate dinner at the 7-11 in the airport. We then rode 3 trains and I spent the time trying to stay awake.

02/01/2017

10 Days Before Departure

I am very excited for our trip to Japan. I am really looking forward to all of the interesting things to see. I am excited for the new experiences in Japan. I am busy preparing for the trip, trying to get ahead in classes, figuring out what to pack, and creating my photo album to gift to my host family.