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Japan Day 1/2 (Saturday and Sunday):

Today was a long travel day. We left Ohare at about 1 and made our painstaking journey to Japan. The plane ride, quite honestly, sucked. It was filled with SO much anticipation and confusion (jet lag is weird). The lady sitting next to me ordered a lot of wine and did nothing but read 1 book the entire 14 hours, which was wild. We landed and waited for about 30 years for our train passes to be validated. The vending machines are so great. They have any drink you could want, hot or cold. Paul accidentally ordered corn soup, which was very funny, because we were sleep deprived. I think I'm going to start calling him Corntaro (コーン太呂), an homage to Momotaro, the story we're reading. Speaking of the trains, the trains here????? Amazing. They are quiet and gentle and clean and I love it so much. We ate dinner at 7/11 which is crazy and amazing. I had the best onigiri and milk tea. Tokyo Central Youth Hostel is delightful. Everyone is so lovely. I am just so happy. I can barely believe that I'm in real live Japan. Aaaaaaaaaaah!

A few pics:

Japan (first official day) day 3 (Monday):

Today was a wild and busy day, and I loved every moment of it. First, we woke up and ate breakfast. Breakfast was AMAZING! We had rice with those sprinkles (furikake), eggs, daikon salad, cabbage-y salad, and croquettes. It was absolutely delicious. After that, we headed off to see the plum blossoms, which looked and smelled so lovely. It was such a nice park, with lots of trees, preschoolers, and puppies, and free tea! We finished up there and went to Harajuku, which was a polar opposite atmosphere. It had lots of people, and stores, and excitement. It was really interesting, but by the end of it, I felt super frazzled and overwhelmed. We went from there to a weird amusement park(ish)/mall(ish) place where we rode the Big O, a giant ferris wheel that overlooks Tokyo. It was beautiful. Dinner came next, then back out to the trains to go to Tokyo Light Show, which I didn't understand, but was cool anyway. Now we are back in the hostel, all nearly asleep and writing our blogs. I can't wait to see what tomorrow holds!

Japan Day 4 (Tuesday):

Today was yet another action-packed day. Today we started off our journey with a trip to the National Museum, which is in Ueno Park. The National Museum was absolutely amazing. It's really cool to be in a country whose history is so ancient. You don't really notice how young America is, until you go to a place that has thousands of years of history. There was so much beautiful art, and even the museum building itself was absolutely gorgeous.

After that, we crossed Ueno and entered Sensou-ji, which is an amazing shrine. First though, we went to a winter peony garden. We got unbelievably lucky to be here at the perfect time to see them. There were hundreds of stunning peonies. Each one had its own homemade home (snow protector). It was sunny and calm and everything smelled soso sweet. I feel lucky to have been able to see it. At the end of the gardens, the temple began. We went back to see it up close, and were able to see a 600 year old tree. That tree has seen so many empires rise and fall, so many different people have sat under its beautiful leaves. I have fallen in love with the Japanese tradition of protecting and preserving nature. The temple was golden and sparkled in the sun.

After the temple we went to eat a delicious tendon lunch, then went to a big shopping district, which used to be Tokyo's black market. It's really cool to see various different sides of one city. Speaking of which, we next went to another temple, and the surrounding area. It was pretty wild to see such a historic place in the middle of the city. This one was more crowded, though.

At the end of the night, we were sleepy, but nevertheless went to the Sky Tree. It is 1.5 times the size of the Sears Tower. It was BEAUTIFUL! The city looked like stars!

Japan Day 5 (Wednesday):

Today we left the Youth Hostel for Nagano. The Youth Hostel was the first comfy place in Japan for me, so I will always hold it in my heart. We arrived at the shinkansen station and got ekiben. Ekiben are bento that you can buy at train stations, and they were amazing. It's absolutely insane that you can buy fresh and delicious foods from convenience stores and train stations. It never ceases to amaze me. After that, we boarded the shinkansen. It's so smooth and fast, that you can't even tell when it's moving and when it isn't. I was putting my luggage in the overhead bin, and look out the window. I was shocked to see that we had started to move. I hadn't been jerked or jostled at all. As we moved further and further outside of Tokyo, and more and more into the countryside, the snow piles became taller and the mountains became more apparent. I am not kidding when I say that the Japanese countryside is the most beautiful place I've ever been.

We arrived at our destination, Shibu Hotel. It is a traditional Japanese hotel, where everyone is dressed in yukata and tatami is everywhere. It's a once in a lifetime experience that I am so grateful for. I finally get to use all my knowledge from our first unit this year! After we dropped our things to our rooms (I'm rooming wth Amalia and Molly), we rode a bus to the Monkey Park. Since the monkeys are free to roam and do whatever they want, the park is removed from any of the villages. We took a 1.8ish km hike to get there. As we approached the park, we saw our first monkeys. There were 3 of them huddled together and trying to take a nap. As we went further, more and more emerged. There were dozens of them. They just did their own thing. It was awesome.

We got back to the hotel after the Monkey Park and headed down to a traditional Japanese dinner. We had several courses of beautiful, delicious foods. There were many flavor profiles that we had never tasted before and found newfound loves for them.

Japan Day 6 (Thursday):

Shibu Onsen day! Today has been the most chill of all the days we've been in Japan. We had a (relatively) late start at 7:30, when we went back down to the banquet hall for breakfast. We had an array of vegetables and fishes and soups, which really filled us up for the day ahead. After we ate breakfast, we went down in our yukata and haori to begin taking our baths. The baths are teeny places all around town.

Japan Day 7 (Friday):

Today we travelled to Kyoto. We were reminded several times that Kyoto is VK's favorite city, so we were all excited and nervous to see if it lived up to the hype (it did). We went on a shinkansen for most of the day and arrived at another ryokan, which was even fancier than the last. We also went to dinner in the train station which was crazy big and was more like a mall with a train station in it, rather than a train station with a mall in it. I had the most delicious ramen.

Japan Day 8 (Saturday):

Cute mountain town day!! We left fairly early from Kyoto station and took a shinkansen to Nagoya, where we got on a bus headed for the montains. The bus was mostly ETHS people with a few Japanese people sprinkled in. We went to Shirakawago first. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site! It was more tourist-y than Gokayama, but still beautiful. The mountains were so close. SO snowy and beautiful. Molly, Amalia, and I got soft serve ice cream and sat on a bench overlooking a creek and the mountains. A