Recap of the past 5 days

Alright. Blogging has been difficult with my lack of internet access, but now I have a minute so im going to try and fit as much in as possible. I wrote some journal entries and I:m going to relay some of that so there are some things i will remember much better than others. Ok, here we go.

On November 23rd we left Suzaka and our first host and headed to Kyoto. on the way we arrived in Nagano and got our japan rail passes, which turned out to be nothing more than colorful slips of paper and aside from being a prepaid method of travel, actually adds a few annoying steps to each trip. Now, not only do we need tickets, but we cant use the machines. We have to wait on line to get tickets then go to another teller and show our tickets and passes which both need to be stamped on entry and departure from each station. All in all they were a good purchase though and we would have decided to see less had we been faced with the questoin "do i want to pay 110 dollars each way to go to hiroshima." After a grueling train ride from Nagano to Nagoya, which would have been fine had the compartement been airconditioned and the blind next to me not smelled like rotten fish and dirty underwear. Going to the bathroom on the train was a task in itself. I took a step up and held on for dear life as I straddled the porceline hold in the ground of the rocky train and some how managed not to pee all over myself!

We arrived in Nagoya with 4 minutes to make our next train, which, miraculously, we did. THe next ride was a mere 30 minutes in which time Mimi and I counted 9 driving ranges. Driving ranges in Japan are long, tall, narrow nets that form a rectangular shape and are easy to spot as they usually stick out of huge spans of farm land. Last Saturday Nagata gave us the afternoon off and Ashley and Dan we to the driving range while the rest of us non-golfers opted to take a nap. THey said it was fun, but thought it was odd that the minimum number of balls you could get was 800. I guess the japanese really like to practice. Aside from counting the driving ranges we also counted the white people in our car. 8 whch surprisingly is more than wed seen since departing our plane from chicago. 2 backpackrs from london asked us for directions in the station and although we were no help, it was nice speaking english to people who would respond in english. We ended up running into them a few days later and met up with them later that night. But that is a whole other story that might require its own blog. Back to the train station. A japanese man helped us find the information desk who then helped show us on a map where our hostel was located. Yuka had made us a map which was very sweet, but there were few specific landmarks and no one had ever heard of it before. Eventually we found it and we were very happy. The Izumi house is known only by the japanese and no one there speaks english. The manager speaks no english either but we managed to communicate that we wanted to spend 3 nights there and we were only willing to pay 150 yen. We were VERY excited to find gthat we each got our own rooms. the walls were more than paper thin, they actually might have been made of cardboard, although I think that would have provided a stronger sound barrier even. I could hear Ashley snorre and mimi unzip her sleeping bag, but at least there was visual privacy. We later discovered that there were no showers at the Izumi house. We were given directions to a bath house near by. We arrived at a small door where they made us remove our shoes (shock) and put them in a cubby. We then had to pay 400 yen to take a shower. We had been to the hot springs so we werent shocked when we saw two lines of women sitting before low shower heads in front of mirrors. We stripped down and entered the bathing area, having come prepared with our very own privacy towels. The springs w ehad been to previously had been different temperatures and we chose the the hot one because there was no one in it. We figured wed do the same at this bath house, but on entering one empty bath one japenese woman looked outraged and started yelling and talking about us and pointed. We finally figured out it was because we did not shower off before entereing the tub and agreed it probably would have been the logical thing to do. We then lined up to shower, sitting on our little stools and wondering if all the old japanese women were there because they wanted to use the baths or if they, too, did not have a shower of their own. The women were definitely over 80 years old and very tiny. tHey are much more agile than the elderly in the US. After our showers we paid 40 yen to use the hairdryer. It was the most expensive, weirdest shower Ive ever taken.

That night we went to a restaurant called A bar which we found in lonely planet. We had a really great meal of japanese bar foods and made our first japanese friends, Kae and Masa who took us to Karaoke after. A bar is a really cool place where you sit at family style tables and pretty much talk to everyone. Most people who go there speak some english at least and they have an english menu. Karaoke was funny and very lost in translation - like. We had a lot of fun.

The next day we walked around downtown Kyoto and then went to Kuruma shrine. We took a 40 minute train ride there and the train slowed down along the way to give everyone a good look at the beautiful folliage. Once we got to Kuruma we took a 30 second shuttle up a mountain and then hiked 45 minutes up to the top, seeing shrines along the way. We got lost as it was getting dark but finally found our way. THat night we went to a French restaurants that we found in Lonely planet that actually had moved and was now an Italian restaurant. We decided to eat there anyway. the food was the smallest size wed ever seen and we left the restaurant starving and ventured off to find another restaurant for dinner #2. it was pouring now and we knew we had a long walk ahead of us. What we didnt know is that after 2 hours of walking we would discover that this place was also closed. We ducked into a busy restaurant to eat something and get out of the rain. No one spoke english and we realized there was a hot plate in the middle of our table. we looked around and ordered what some other people were eating. The waitress came over and cracked an egg on our table and asked what kindo f sauce we wanted. She then instructed us to pour the sauce on the egg. THen she walked away with no further explanation. We sat there, staring at the egg for about 5 minutes, wondering why it was there and if we were supposed to eat it or just let it burn. She then came over with some noodles that she just plopped down next to the egg. Everything tasted bad and we left very dissapointed and still puzzled abou tthe egg we all decided not to eat.

We decided the next day to do a walking tour of Southern Hagashiama, which led us to many beautiful temples and parks. We saw some geishas and took pictures only to discover that they were FAKE! We passed a shop where you can pay 150 dollars to get dressed up as a geisha for the day and have people take pictures of you. We learned that very few geishas actually exist and they are hard to find so we settled for our fake geishas and took a few more photos. We then ran into the brits we met in the train station and made a plan to meet up with them later. We went to dinner at a round about sushi restaurant but befoer that we decided to buy some sake because drinks at 7/11 are way cheaper than at dinner. We werent sure if we could drink on the street, even though they do sell beer in vending machines, so we went t oa department store bathroom where they have a sitting area which we found when we were putting on department store makeup samples the day earlier. It was a good choice. We then went to the restaurant where as usual i had about 10 pieces of sushi and mimi and ashley barely ate anything. They had ume and shiso rolls and I was very happy. We then went to an irish pub called McLoughlins where we met some interesting characters and I talked about politics, the holocost, america and obesity. I felt very smart and besides the sake which I had had hours earlier I was completely sober so I knew I wasn:t just spouting complete bullshit. It was the best intellectual time Id ever had. After drinks, which ended up costing far too much, we went to karaoke again where things got weird and one of my travel buddies made a special friend. They wish to remain nameless and as much as Id love to divulge the story I cannot. Great story though. Ask me later. I put the other one to bed and called my mom for the first time which was great and made me very happy to hear her voice.

The day after that we took a day trip to Nara, deciding it would be cheaper to stay 3 more nights at our Hostel in Kyoto. Nar, the first capital of Japan, is a weird place which features the largest shrine made out of wood (largest in the world) and a deer park. You feed the deer and pet them and they are everywhere and I hated it. I hate deer. I dont want to touch them or feed them or pet them I just want to eat them. There were so many and they came right up to you and asked three times with the head nods for yu to feeed them. We had a free guide that day and he explained that we had to wait for all 3 nods otherwise they weren:t allowed. He put up his hand like a fake gun and said BANG BANG and they ran away. It was really weird and I didnt like that either. The temple was very large and there is a giant budda in it. You cant really tell how big it is even when you looked at it so our guide explained that the nostrel is so big that you could actualy climb inside. It was giant. We ate dinner in Nara and then headed back to Kyoto to go to bed.

The next day we went to Hiroshima which was powerful but you still cant really feel how expansive the descruction was cause they did a really good job rebuilding the city. We felt like America just sucked afterwards. THe musuem took us 3 hours to get through and I probably read a text books worth of information and felt exhausted afterwards. We went back to A bar that night and got some more travelling tips. Now we:r e in Osaka and I have to go shower! ANother blog coming soon!