Rainy day

This morning I was supposed to go hiking third wheel style up the closest mountain but the English lovers slept the day away. Around noon I gave up on them, geared up, and decided to go ahead and do the hike on my own.

Sidenote: I am sorry to say that I broke the vow I made at Cedar Creek in 5th grade to contribute as little DEET to the environment as possible. The bugs here are killing me and if its either me or them...well, I chose me.

Anyway, everything was going smoothly until I got to the gondola drop off point and then it started to pour. I made the decision right away to man up and hike to the top of the mountain in the rain. It was just one of those things that I felt I needed to do. Well, that lasted about 20 minutes and then I heard the thunder and saw the lightning followed by about 100 Japanese hikers running downhill towards me and shouting things at me as they passed. I can only assume that they were commenting on how stupid I was to be going up instead of down so I gave up and followed the masses back toward the gondola station. But I wasn't ready to go home yet. Instead I found a nice dry place for the camera and headed back into the rain. I was feeling all spiritual up on top of this beautiful mountain (that I couldn't see because of the fog) so I did the whole double clap and bowing routine to the earth since there was no temple and then threw up a prayer to my Christian God before laying down on my back snow angel style in the middle of the botanical gardens. I am pretty sure I wasn't supposed to actually be in the garden but not a soul was around because of the rain. Maybe I came to the top of the mountain to see a beautiful view of the Japanese Alps but what I got was so much better. Laying on my back in the pouring rain on top of a mountain in the most beautiful place I have ever been, I felt alive like never before.

Hakuba

Habuka through a zoom lens...

Kamakura

The morning after the booze cruise was rough, but 2 Tylenol (or I hope that was Tylenol anyway - I don't read Japanese) and 1 Pacari Sweat later and I was back in the game! I ended up going to this concert of this guy I had met a few days before somewhere in Shinjuku. This guy is in law school in Tokyo but is an exchange student from New Zealand. Anyway, he is in this Japanese Weezer cover band. It was awesome. I got to see all these different bands doing songs in English when half of the singers didn't even speak English. By the way, the Japanese love Avril Lavigne. Half the songs were her. Random.

After the concert, I headed down to the beach at Kamakura for the weekend. There was a big party on the beach and I somehow ended up being the only girl in our group so half the night was spent with the guys playing pick up artist on the beach. I guess its intimidating to get approached by a huge group of guys on the beach because they would always immediately introduce me - kinda like bait. "Look, we are cool we promise...we already have one girl with us!" Haha!

The girls didn't speak any English so I was hard for me to communicate with them, but the next morning I bonded with the girls in the universal language of women....Sex and The City! We woke up first the next morning, found a random Sex and the City DVD and put it on while everyone else was still asleep. People started waking up and looking into the living room like "WTF?" There were bodies all around us on the floor and we were all lined up on the couch. 3 perfectly pampered Japanese girls and me!

I say perfectly pampered because they had just spent 2 hours quietly fixing their makeup before anyone else woke up. I would be an epic fail if I lived in this girl society.

I took this picture on the train ride back to Tokyo. You have to love her tattoo. "Love, Believe, Fren." Classic.

Odaiba

The Japanese are so smart. They made an entire island by sinking tons of trash into Tokyo Bay and then pouring some dirt on top. And the icing on the cake? They named the place "F island!" Well not really....they actually named it Odiaba, but there is a themepark type place there called "F Island" which is still pretty funny to me.

Also housed on the island is a giant 59 foot "life sized" Gundam. I am not really sure what the story is here but apparently Gundam is a machine like superhero figure in Japanese culture and he is kind of a big deal. The waiting line was over an hour long just to get into the Gundam giftshop...on a weekday!

After the day on Odaiba, Tyler and I went on an all you can drink booze cruise around Tokyo Bay. I'm starting to worry about becoming an alcoholic because everywhere I go its all you can drink night. The views of Tokyo were amazing and there was great non-traditional Japanese entertainment going on.

After the cruise, we headed toward Karaoke and everyone knows how I feel about that...Bipolar. Actually Japanese Karaoke isn't as bad though. Its just your group of friends in the room so you can pretty much make it as much or as little bipolar as you like. (Lauren, I would def go to MacLeods with you every night if it was like this place!) I then attempted to take myself home. Bad idea. I ended up getting very lost and wondered around until this nice 5 ft tall Japanese man decided to take me under his wing and help me find my way home. About an hour later we arrived at the friend's house where I was staying that night. Thank you little man whose name I can't remember!

Kara...Ok?

For those of you that don't know, we pronounce karaoke incorrectly. Its supposed to be like kara...ok? Or at least that is what it sounds like to me. I did karaoke today and sang Taylor Swift for Neil. (Neil, if you aren't reading this then that song was a complete waste of my time!! Na na na na na!!!)

Photos

A few pics for those who don't wanna actually read the blog:

I think I'm Lost

Went to a party in Shibuya with Tyler and this group of friends from the I Think I'm Lost website that Tyler runs. I just assumed that everyone knew each other, but I was sooo wrong. Since they were all friends through this website and not in real life, every one was introducing themselves as their screen names:

dude: Hey, I'm Allaboutanime378
girl: Ohh, I though you might be him! I'm Sexygirl4U
dude: Nice....I imagined you would be hot.

Pretty hilarious conversations to overhear actually. I introduced myself to a few people as some super random, made up names but they weren't into it. It quickly became apparent that I wasn't informed about what had been said on the latest thread so I was pretty much screwed. They would just look at me like I was an alien because I was obviously saying the wrong things...Ooops? The internet attracts some interesting characters and the whole evening was pretty awkward but funny. Anyway, I ended up staying the night in some random internet cafe that night because we were locked out of the hotel room.

The Japanese are too trusting. The next morning Tyler simply went to the front desk of this super nice hotel and gave them the name and room number of someone he knew was staying there. The guy just assumed that we were actually staying there. No ID check. Nothing. So basically we broke into someone's room the next morning for a little more sleep and some free showers! Woohoo!

quick update

Ok I am going to have to change these into actual stories later when I have more time, but here is the basic rundown...

Osaka night 2: Ran into our waiter from the previous night and took him to dinner and then all you can drink bar. It turns out that both an American girl and and English guy can both drink a Japanese bartender under the table. Poor Shoua kept trying to explain why he was sick in horrible English and finally gave up and typed it into his little translation machine which informed us that he was suffering from motion sickness due to alcohol. Hehe. Good night.

Kyoto/Nara: Spent the day walking around and looking at tons of shrines and temples. Met a few English kids in the hostel bar. Next day the 3 of us went to Nara for the day to explore. Nara was beautiful - more shrines and temples galore. Went out to some random shot bar and met a group of engineers from all over the place, ended up going to some club and staying out all night. When I got back home around 6:30 am I decided that I might as well just stay up so I got my stuff together and went to Himeji for the day. Spent the day walking around and exploring one of the few remaining original castles with this JET from Australian that Tlyer put me in touch with. That afternoon I left Himeji and got on the fastest shinkansen for Tokyo. By the way, I found a railpass and used that for Kyoto, Nara, Himeji, and Tokyo. YES!

Tokyo: By the time I got to Tokyo it was late on the 26th. I was exhausted from no sleep the night before so I decided to just chill at the hostel for the night. I ended up meeting some really cool kids from all over the US - almost everyone was American that night. Spent the next day exploring the Asakusa and Ueno area with two sexy guys from New Hampshire. We got lost... ALOT but it was great. That night I met up with a kid I know from Nashville and we all went out to another all you can drink place. (we should really get some of those in knoxville) Another crazy night followed and we ended up losing one kid but all ended ok when Mike finally made it home at 9am this morning. I miss those boys already :)

OK so now I am back with Tyler in Tokyo and hopefully headed up north tomorrow!

Osaka

Getting from Hiroshima to Osaka was an experience. A frustrating, expensive experience. I bought a bus ticket for a 4 hour bus ride that was supposed to leave at 8 am so I show up at the bus station around 7:30 and start looking for the bus company's office to sign in. (By the way, it explicitly says on the website that you must sign in before you get on the bus.) I wonder around looking for the office and asking people for help unsuccessfully for over an hour and end up missing my bus. It turns out that I was supposed to walk into this giant parking lot filled with about 100 buses and somehow find which one was mine...sooo frustrating. Oh, and there is no office to sign in. Ugh. I finally manage to borrow someones cell phone to call customer service about finding another bus. When I ask about transferring my ticket the customer service guy simple responded "NO." I did the American thing and rephrased the question hoping to get an answer I liked better and yet again I was met with his favorite English word...NO. Finally I gave up and went into the train station to get a ticket. I somehow managed to buy a ticket on the fastest Shinkansen and was in Osaka an hour later and $150 poorer.

Anyway....Osaka is a really cool city. I spent yesterday wondering around some shopping malls the size of UT and exploring some different areas of town. The best thing was taking the glass elevator 173 meters high to the top of the Garden Observatory building. At the top is this giant circular deck where you can see the entire city. Osaka is a BIG place. I will upload some pictures when I get to a better computer...somehow I managed to stay in super sketchville part of town this time and this computer could blow up at any minute.

Although I have now been here around 2 weeks now, I still have not completely perfected my Japanese which led to a horribly embarrassing situation yesterday. The Japanese people are the most helpful people I ever met. If they can understand what you are asking, they are always willing to help you figure it out, and I am starting to get used to just approaching random people and asking them for help when I am lost. So yesterday we were looking for this specific restaurant for about 30 mins and finally decided to break down and ask someone. Sexy British guy wont do it -I guess guys have problems asking for directions in every country- so I head over to a group of kids that look around our age. I walk up and use the tactic that I have learned works the best so far: "Sumimasen, know....this.....restaurant? Where.....it.....is?" All said very slowly in broken English, because its easier to understand. One of the guys in the group just stares at me and replies..."No, I don't know where that restaurant is. I am not Japanese. I am from Taiwan, and I speak English. Thanks though...." Oops?

Hiroshima

Ok so I bid farewell to Tyler and the island of Oshima and headed to Tokyo a few days ago. While walking down the street, this random old man comes up to me and asks me if he can speak English to me. I of course say yes and then I went on my first Japanese date! We went to dinner next to my bus stop and practiced his English for about 2 hours. He had a couple kids my age and told me all about them. He was actually an English teacher....which doesn't really make much sense because he couldn't really speak English that well.

Anyway, I got on the bus and headed to Hiroshima for the next two nights solo. Luckily I met 2 American kids and one dead sexy English guy and we all explored Hiroshima together. The first day we saw the A- Bomb dome (what is left of this giant building in the downtown area of Hiroshima), went to the Atomic bomb Memorial Museum, spent some time in Peace Park, and climbed to the very top of the Hiroshima castle. It rained the entire time but the rain kind of added to the somber scene at the sight where the atomic bomb destroyed an entire city. The next day we went out to Miyajima but the tide was low so it didn't exactly look like the pictures. It was still completely amazing though.

Sorry this post isn't very funny. There is nothing funny about nuclear war, and the city of Hiroshima is a constant reminder of why things need to change .

English 101

Yuuki and his roommates invited me over to their house to learn how to make Okonomiyaki for dinner. Yuuki speaks a little English and his roommates had taken English classes in highschool, but the communication was difficult early on. Luckily, alcohol makes communication through charades much much easier. By the end of the night, everyone had learned several new words and Yo even managed correct usase of the phrase "that's hot!" I am such a good English teacher...

I then continued my English class at this local bar where they were having a goodbye party for Tyler. Everyone was already hammered by the time I got there (one dude has already passed out in the middle of the floor....classy), but I still managed to teach everyone a few key prases. I knew I was successful when we were all climbing into this gaint taxi-van at the end of the night and one of the guys yelled "let's go bitches!" to everyone still outside. Yes!

Oh, and everyone in that picture is several years older than me. Don't they look like babies?

Scuba Steve

Yesterday I came face to face with a 6ft long eel. Unfortunately that wasn't the scariest thing going on at the time. See when I learned to scuba dive, I learned to hover a foot or two above the ocean floor in order to not accidentally kill the coral or kick up the sand. In Japan, apparently, they like to lay on the bottom. My scuba partner and I were already struggling with the language barrier on the surface...but then it got so much worse under water. He kept swimming up behind me and letting all the air out of my BC so I would sink to the bottom. Then I would try and be sneaky and put a little air back in so I would be neutrally buoyant. This is the game we played at 90 feet deep for about an hour. Finally, he got so frustrated with me that he decided to swim on top of me with one hand holding me down against the ocean floor. He kept dragging me around and pointing out interesting fish until I wanted to scream. Of course I couldn't because then my regulator would fall out and I would die at the bottom of the ocean. Anyway, then he sees the giant eel and we swim right up to him. This thing was nasty and had a mouthful of teeth that it looked like he wanted to eat me with. My partner was so into the eel though that I had a chance to escape. He let go of me and grabbed the eel by his tail. While he was chasing the eel around this little cave area, I quickly put some air in my BC and escaped for the rest of the dive. Oh, did I mention that my dive partner was a 75 year old man? Old people are awesome in Japan!

Fine print: This is not the actual eel that I saw, but it did look like this. Roommate would be very angry if I took her camera under water!

Mt. Mihara

The island of Oshima is made completely of volcanic ash from the Mt. Mihara volcano. The last major eruption was in 1986 so I figured it would be completely safe to just head on in for a peek at the action myself. A local islander named Yuuki offered to give us a tour of the inside of the crater so we hopped in the jeep and headed for the top. So here I am in the back of a jeep older than me and with no seat belt because believe it or not I was too fat and it wouldn't fit around me. The jeep didn't even have a windshield so we had to wear motorcycle goggles to avoid getting ash in our eyes. Yuuki turns around and says to me "you like jet engine?" Confused, I try to figure out what he is talking about and finally realize that he meant to ask if I like roller coasters....Once he finds out that I am not going to competley lose it, he hits the gas. The next 40 minutes are spent flying up and down mountain trails, but once we are inside the crater, everything turns to black ash. Yuuki of course decides that this would be an excellent time to turn off the 4-wheel drive and hit the crater Tokyo drift style. We all go flying though the crater for the next 2 hours stopping here and there to check out the hotspots where steam is constantly escaping to the surface. Note: sliding into a hot spot wearing only chacos is a bad idea- volcano steam is hotter than it looks!

Once we reach the summit, Tyler and I decide to go ahead and shoot a commercial for Yuuki's jeep. What do you think?

The perfect ending? After thanking Yuuki and giving him a goodbye hug he turns around blushes and says "Sanks, I never before receive hug from blond girl!"

Kawaiiiiii!!

Ryuohzaki Point

Today I went to what felt like the edge of the world. I began the day simply trying to find some breakfast but gave up after about an hour of driving around and going into random shops. The problem is the lack of signs on buildings here. A house and a restaurant look exactly alike and there are rarely any signs on any of the buildings to let you know if you are walking into a church or a bar. Of course, there could be giant signs everywhere labeling each and every building and I would still have no idea where I was going. Anyway, after giving up on breakfast I headed south and drove until the island literally ended at this huge cliff. For some reason I decided that it would be a good idea to climb over the fence to get a better look - bad idea. Naturally I slipped and fell and skidded a few feet toward the edge... after a mini-panic attack, I managed to set up the camera for a traditional Asian photo complete with the peace sign!

Jetlag is a bitch

So it turns out that you can walk around Tokyo with a beer in hand- totally legal. It also turns out that having several of these beers and then boarding an overnight ferry is not the best way to get over jetlag. In fact in might be the worst.

My first night in Japan was spent of the overnight ferry from Tokyo to Oshima. Tyler reserved us "seats" on the ferry which actually consisted of a body-sized square marked with duct tape on the floor of one of the boat's lower level. Scary. Somehow I managed to pass out for a few hours while laying in my square surrounded by snoring Japanese men who were headed back to the island after a long weekend in Tokyo. After finally landing on Oshima around 5am, we found the car and headed home. Tyler and I had discussed sleeping arrangements last week. He mentioned over and over again that I wouldn't be a burden while staying with him on the island because he had a futon I could sleep on. So this whole time I am thinking a futon as in a couch that folds down into a bed. Makes sense right? Imagine my shock when I finally make to the island with only a few hours of sleep in the past 2 days and a miserable seasick/hangover and Tyler throws a couple blankets on the ground for my "futon." Hah. I must have looked at him like he was crazy. When I asked where his bed was, he simply pointed to the other side of the room where there was another pile of blankets on the floor. Sleep tight!

This morning/afternoon when I finally woke up, we headed to this little restaurant in downtown Oshima that Tyler's Japanese family owns. After a delish breakfast, the father taught me how to say a few useful phases in Japanese that sounds like English. For example, one answers the phone in Japan "mushi mushi" which sounds like "washing machine" in English. He made me practice all different phrases while the other tables simply stared or laughed.

Oh another thing that makes the Japanese laugh is that idea of being vegetarian. The concept of not eating meat simply doesn't make sense to them. When Tyler explains it to them, they look at me curiously, laugh, then ask for an explanation. Once they understand that I don't eat meat, they offer me fish instead and we start the process over again. In the end, they just conclude that I might be a little crazy and move on.

After lunch we headed out on a tour of the island. I saw the main fishing port and visited a few local museums which were basically small unused houses with a sign reading "this place is museum" on the front door. One did have 3 life sized geishas inside who moved mechanically and sang a traditional song. Terrifying when you don't expect it! I also took my first Japanese driving lesson which consisted of me often forgetting to drive on the left side of the road and Tyler screaming at me for getting to close to the sides. Tommorow Tyler has to work and I am taking the car out alone for the day....this is gonna be interesting.

Actually, Tyler had to work today too but he forgot. He just got a call and ran out the front door headed for the school so I decided it was the perfect time to start this blog so those of you with nothing else better to do or those wanting to be super chaw on my life -DAD- could follow my travels. I don't know how often I will be able to write, but I plan on staying on Oshima for the few week or so.

konnichiwa!

MJ