Nara to the end

In Nara Sean and I went on the day we were leaving. It was a beautiful place I wish to I could've seen more but one day was enough to see alot for 6 hours. We went to shrines and temples and saw the pagoda and big buddha (for 500 yen). We hiked a little up the mountain and made our way back down the mountain to the station after lunch.

Now for the rest of the trip after that. :)

I suppose I will do it by sightseeing as I've explained a lot of my grievances and thoughts already.

My next trip out was to Odawara with Liz. It was a frightfully windy day but all together nice. Odawara was a pleasent little beach town with lots of nice people. I spoke to an old man briefly in the wind about the town he spoke really incredible english (I don't know why these people don't have better jobs, not that I know what he did he just didn't seem the type to know english.) My only regret with the many brief contacts that i've made especially the older folks is that I could not get to know them better because the were so interested in who I was. After wandering a bit more we found the main street with all the shops and looked around a bit and got some food. After which we decided to go back to the station and go home.

2 days later we went to the yokohama this being our second time, our first time to yokohama was with a group of us and japanese kids. I'll talk about that trip first. Most of the Japanese kids were concerned with shopping, which was a little scary because its just such a captialist society. Shopping is great and all but I'd rather go up a tall building. Anyhow we also went to the ramen museum which was awesome. This place had 9 different kinds of ramen from all over Japan. Now for you americans that think ramen is just that little packet of noodles with flavoring, your wrong, really wrong. Ramen is one of my favorite foods. I've decided that if one day the oppurtunity comes about I am opening a legit ramen shop in the us. Anyhow that was pretty much that trip.

The next time around to yokohama with the whole class we took a tour of a park which the name escapes me. But anyhow it was quite large and we didnt have much time to see because we were attending a tea ceremony. MY pictures on Facebook shall suffice for the tour I will load lots here soon especially when I get back to the US. The tea ceremony was not quite what I wantedm, everyone was loud and boisterous as fuck and it was really annoying and frankly really american, no one really can appreciate the silence and zen like moment that is a tea ceremony. Oh well.

Our last trip this past week was to Kamakura, I definately plan on going there again some day. We visited the Daibutsu which is another giant buddha, and we visited a temple which the name escapes me again as well. But anyhow there were lots of sea eagles everywhere and a really pretty view. Kamakura itself is a beach town with lots of surfers and made me wish I was a surf bum. The beach had shacks and lots of rubbish every where and just made me feel real nostalgic for a time in which I never lived. If i had to live anywhere in Japan it would be kamakura or tokyo.

This last friday we had a thanksgiving farewell party. In which we all got dressed up in tuxes and the ladies in kimonos. I myself not one to be fancy didn't really enjoy it, but the tux was the most comfortable one i recall ever wearing. Though I do believe what makes a tux uncomfortable is the shoes and well we all wore sneakers. It was a fun little party anyhow we all mingled and took pictures and they even had a cake for myself and the 4 or 5 others that celebrated birthdays in japan. There were speaches, handshakes and a small gift for everyone from the school it was a good time and I'm very thankful to the school for putting up with this mangy bunch of americans.

Now I wait. Tomorrow we have the day off and I'm not quite sure what to do. As I've been putting it going home is going back to the real world and I'm anxioust to get to it. I hate the real world but I can't live this fantasy life forever it doesnt work that way and its too fucking expensive. Thank you everyone who supported me and helped me get to experiance this country for the last 2 and half months its been really eye openning. Especially to the travel possibilities it makes me want to explore the rest of the world. I've definately breached some boundaries travelling as an adult. As most of you know I've only travelled as a kid now that I am older I have the power to go anywhere and do anything and I wouldn't have realized that without you who helped me get there. Thanks so much I love you all so much, I look forward to getting back to see you.


Its time to finish this.

Osaka

The day Sean and myself went to Osaka we checked into our hotel and found it without too much of an issue because the directions I was able to decipher better then the previous. We were staying in Super Hotel Osaka City and I will just have to say that those hotels are impressive. After we checked in we walked around the city of osaka around our hotel and then decided to go to Universal Studios Osaka. After much consideration from myself because it is so expensive we went in. Not much to say but that its exactly the same but in japanese, the people were very interesting to see because of the vast amount of school kids. Never the less it was a good day. After which we went back to the hotel to pass out.

The next day after some conversation the previous evening sean and I decided to go to Himeji and Kobe this day. Himeji was fantastic being my favorite castle through out the trip. Very huge and pretty and white. The castle itself is very well known because it is so white.

After the castle we took the train into kobe where we wandered the docks and decided to watch the sun set from kobe tower. At the top of tower I sat down for a break and ended up talking to an old gentleman who I could barely understand but could loosely tell that he was asking me if i liked japanese and french food because kobe has a lot of french food a long with its world famous steaks.

We decided to wonder toward china town where we so happend upon a kobe steak restaurant this being the first one we found I said whatever lets eat here though the prices extreme I expected this. I also expected a very very small portion. But it was well worth it something to knock off my bucket list because it was incredible. After wards we walked around china town and decided to try the cheaper steak which was good but nothing in mere comparison to the magnificent 60$ steak i purchased from the previous place. This place had steaks ranging from 40 to 120$ or 12000 yen. We then made the trek back to our hotel.

The next day was our Osaka exploration day. Sean and I went to Osaka Castle and explored that. This castle being a remodeled castle in recent years because it was wrecked during WWII. Never the less it had some interesting art and really cool 3D videos on one of the floors. After we explored the castle sean and I split up. I decided to go to the floating garden in osaka which was incredibly tall and very cool. There I watched the sun set and took several videos and photos and if I can ever get to it to be put together I will post online. After then I went and played around in osaka yodabashi and went back to the hotel.

In my next post I will talk about Nara.

In Summation the Past 3 weeks (ish)

To start I will speak of my trip to Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and Himeji in somewhat of an order.

Day 1 of Kyoto.
October 31st we left for Tokyo train station to catch the shinakansen to Kyoto. Shinkansen for those that do not know is the bullet train which travels at a speed of 188 mph and it takes about 2 and a half hours approximately to get from Tokyo to Kyoto. We left around 930 and arrived a bit later. Whitney, Allison, Sean and myself had the same hotel. We discovered that most the touristy type cities train stations have english speaking guides who are surprisingly volunteers and will help you find your way to where you are going hotel, subway anything. It was quite pleasant.

Our hotel was called Super Hotel Kyoto and was right in the middle of the shopping district of kyoto, and for its price it was quite nice comparitively to every cheap hotel in america. After wandering in the rain a bit we found our hotel which was not on a main road and so it took a bit of time.

After which we met up with the others back in central kyoto as well as Gary our teacher and went looking for dinner. After actually being turned down at several restaurants some whom gave the excuse of no english menu, theres a party we all ended up at Sukiya or Yoshinoya dont remember which name it was, but one of the chain diner like restaurants. After eating we all split off went wandering a bit then headed back to the hotel being quite tired from our little journey.

The next day sean and myself decided to not meet up with the others to do sight seeing but decided to do our own thing. We first hit a really big shrine which my name escapes me but the pictures will do the talking. After the shrine we wondered a bit then went to the local zoo; which I won't lie was terrible, they treat there animals like hell it was a blow to the gut to me to see a tiger kept in a small cage with barely any room to move same goes with the lions and leopards but the tiger worst of all, too sad.

Anyhow after that infuriating experiance we went to a temple which you had to pay to get in and did so very pretty and quite large I ended up losing sean along the way and waited for him outside for a bit and decided to leave and probably missed him about 15 minutes later which I later found out. Being on my own was nice anyhow. I explored all the major temples and shrines in the area I was in and climbed a mountain to a nice view point of the city where a graveyard was not sure if I was supposed to be there though but it was well worth the risk, after wandering my way back down the hill to the main city I found myself on the same road as our hotel and made my way back there to rest up at about 5 pm. Found whitney and ended up getting lunch.

The next day Whitney, Allison and myself decided to do some sight seeing ourselves and did our own thing. Of which I found out that the previous day was a reck because the group was too large and got nothing done compared to what I did. Anyhow the girls and I made our way to the imperial palace and the park there and apparently the palace is rarely open and was open that day so we were quite lucky. Afterwards we went to nijo-jo or nijo castle which was the main castle in town, for some history kyoto was the previous capitol of Japan during the Tokugawa era before the Meiji era don't ask for dates I won't give them. Somewhere in there we got some awesome ramen of which I've become obsessed with more on that later. After the castle we wandered our way to the Daiso which is Hyaku (100) yen shop which had a lot of cool little cheap things of which I got many (great gifties cause everything else is expensive) Then we made our way back to the hotel.

After a bit of a rest we went and got dinner which consisted of OKONOMIYAKI. Now let me explain a bit on what this is. You are given a selection of foods which consist of meat, fish, poultry or veggies, or a mix, I got meat and seafood. pork, beef, fish and some other sea creatures, there is a batter involved in this mix along with some veggies and you grill it on a griddle in front of you and put a bbq like sauce on top once sufficiently grilled (photos to come whitney has them) It was very fun and very tasty I highly reccomend it.

The next day sean and I made our way to Osaka which I will talk about in my next post tomorrow and will update everything with photos because I am too tired to do right now.

Photos of the trip can be found on my facebook. Facebook

Week off stories coming soon