Christmas Travels Part 1

Okay, so I’m going to write about my trip to Tokyo, Nagoya and Hiroshima that I went on over the Christmas holidays. This is the first of probably four parts because I have a lot to say and the net is so slow here it's very hard to post pictures all in one. =< 

So this is 22nd - 24th! 

22^nd – 23^rd December Journey to Tokyo

Winter break started on the 22^nd December, although we had class that day. We had booked our trip to Tokyo on the night bus, with the company Willer that has a website in English that I can understand. You have to book your ticket, and then within 3 days (including the day you booked it) pay at a machine in a konbini (small convenience store) like 7/11 or Lawson. It was a bit difficult to do this because we couldn’t understand the machine very well, but with the help of Emma who speaks much better Japanese than any of us we managed it okay.

When we went to catch our bus we had a little panic, because the place that the company told us to wait was not a bus stop at all, just the corner of a normal road, and we were really afraid we had just gone to the wrong place! But thankfully, before we freaked out and ran all the way to Hakata bus station, the bus turned up. The ‘relax’ style bus was super cool, with pink reclining seats and a crazy little pull down hood to cover your face and protect you from the lights when they turned on every 2 hours for a toilet stop.

It was a long journey; we left at Fukuoka at 19:45 and arrived in Nagoya the next day at 8am. We stayed in Nagoya for nearly 5 hours in which time we ate breakfast at Denny’s and I bought some mascara and nail polish for cheap at a little drugstore. The next bus was supposed to be from 12:40 until 19:00 but ended up being an hour late because of traffic. I didn’t mind. I slept on and off, listening to music, looked out of the window and just relaxed on the comfortable seat. It was pretty pleasant considering we were travelling for more than 24 hours.

Our first arrival in Tokyo was pretty amazing – we went through Shinjuku, which is pretty exciting and brightly lit and neon. We were all so impressed, like wide eyed children looking out of the windows totally overwhelmed by how big and shiny and brilliant it was! It was an awesome moment, the realisation that we were in the city we had all dreamed about visiting for so many years. The hostel we had booked in Tokyo was in minami-senjuu, quite a way out of the city centre but reachable on the metro. Leila is really good at reading maps and figuring out directions, so she did most of the work getting us from where the bus dropped us to the hostel. We were all so tired, our bags were heavy and Japanese train stations are really not set up for small girls with big bags – there are a lot of stairs to climb! 

The hostel we stayed at is called Hotel Fukudaya and it was a little weird. For a start, Minami-senjuu is a bit of a funny, scary area with lots of homeless people and old men hanging around on the street. The hostel was down a sinister looking back street – although there are a lot of these scary-seeming streets in Japan that I think are actually pretty normal. We were greeted by a very friendly woman, however, who talked to us all about the facilities (2 showers, 1 with a hair dryer, a toilet and sinks on each floor) and warned us that the room was very narrow. And it was! There was just enough room for our suitcase, a small table, the two futon and a small set of shelves with a television on. Our neighbours included 2 young men, one with blonde hair and tattoos, and a creepy red eyed older man who smoked in the bathroom and choked up phlegm for 20 minutes every morning. It wasn’t pretty, but for 2000yen a night it was functional and good enough for our needs. The first night we pretty much passed out straight away, after eating some potato salad at a little fried chicken place that was the only restaurant left open.  

24^th December Tokyo Day 1 – Ueno, Asakusa, Shibuya, Harajuku, Tokyo Tower

Our first day in Tokyo was Christmas Eve, the 24^th. We went to meet Meike’s friend Haruna at Ueno Zoo. My stupid camera had broken, so I have no photos from the zoo at all, all of these are stolen from Leila and Meike! The zoo was super cute, and only very cheap, something like 600yen for an adult ticket. The main attraction was of course the famous Ueno Zoo Pandas, which were epic cute, one was lying on his back eating bamboo with lots of sticks of it laid out on his belly, with his feet up, so relaxed and chilled out. We also saw a beautiful tiger that paced back and forth along the lines of people, making the little kids yell in surprise when it came so close to the glass. It was a little scary to be so close, even separated by the glass. There were lots of different monkeys, and a mother and baby gorilla walking around together, arm in arm. We even went to the petting zoo, where we were allowed to hold some mice and I stroked a nice goat. 

I love seeing animals so much – the cool reptile house with a huge alligator and massive tortoise, the lovely soft eyed giraffes and elephants <3 I was so happy the whole time. I bought some adorable giraffe earrings from the gift shop.

After we finished at the zoo, we went to Asakusa. There is a big, famous shrine there that we wanted to visit, and a market full of loads of beautiful things for all the tourists to buy. It was so busy and you could smell all the different food in the air. All the stall holders were shouting to get people to come to them. It was pretty exciting! The shrine was beautiful as well, with a great big handing red lantern above the entrance and lots of statues. You had to go and fan some smoke into your head – apparently it would make you young and beautiful. Then we went and threw 15yen into the shrine, and then made a wish.  

The shrine was very beautiful, and I felt happy to have made a wish on Christmas Eve, even if I’m not religious and don’t really believe that any God would make it come true. I just felt nice to have some kind of hope for something in the year to come.

We bought some cute things from the market in Asakusa, and then took the metro again to go to Akihabara where I bought a new camera yay! Then we went on to Harajuku. This is a big shopping district in Tokyo, with lots of really expensive shops on the main street and some interesting cheap shops on some side streets. It was super busy; I was amazed at how many people there were. When the road went up a little bit on a hill and you could see ahead it was like an endless stream of people just walking and shopping. It was so impressive and exciting. Harajuku is known for its crazy people dressed in brilliant clothes, and I definitely saw some punk styles and gothic Lolita girls walking around.  

We went to H&M and then down some of the more interesting streets where we just took in the atmosphere, all the shop owners shouting out their prices and best deals. I think Harajuku is one of my favourite places in Tokyo just because of the atmosphere, it felt very different and unusual there, like the usual restrictions and stresses of Japan were a little bit lifted and people could be individuals if they wanted to.

This cute Christmas doggy was so happy <3

Then we decided to do a night time trip up Tokyo Tower! After a quick refuel in Starbucks, and meeting up with some people from Leeds Uni (it was so nice to see everyone again! Even if it was only for a little while here), we went to queue up and buy tickets (only around 800yen!). I’m really scared of lifts, unfortunately for everyone else, so we walked up all the 600 stairs to get to the viewing platform. I think my friends hated me a little bit for that, but I thought it was fun. 

Because it was Christmas Eve, which in Japan is a day a little bit like Valentine’s Day, same as Christmas, there was a big pink heart on the front of the tower. On the viewing platform there was a love seat with a big pink heart around it, and couples were queuing all the way around to have their photo taken sitting on it together, wearing rented Santa hats. It was pretty funny. The view from the top of the tower is very beautiful, especially at night, the lights of the cars and buildings all different colours. I tried out lots of different settings on my new camera to take photos. Tokyo is so huge, it just seems like it goes on forever and ever.

 

We even went to the funny wax museum inside the tower, which turned out to be a few famous figures and then a whole loads of German rock stars, most of which I didn’t recognise. Weird, but funny. After such a busy day we went home and passed out straight away, after doing a rotation of showers and hair dryers.

Sumo and Kumamoto Trip

I had a totally cool weekend.

On Saturday the university paid for us to go and see a sumo game. The ticket was 3,100 yen which is expensive, but we got it for free. They even paid for us to take the train and a bus to the stadium. The sumo was very interesting - I've never seen sumo before even on TV so I had no expectations. It was sort of a combination of funny and awesome - these huge guys slapping themselves and throwing rice and stamping, squatting down, leaping at each other and wrestling so fast until one of them fell over or out of the ring. A couple of times one of them rolled right down the edges of the ring and smacked into the people waiting round the edge.

Funny English sign - fundamentally, no re-entering.

No entry is allowed for gangsters!

Me and Meike with a cardboard cutout sumo wrestler

It was very hot in the stadium, after we left I went to a second hand store in Tenjin and bought 2 new dresses (one for only 105 yen)! And then me and Meike went to Starbucks and I had a matcha frapuccino as usual. An American guy came in and asked us where the best clubs were nearby, so we told him to just look for nomihoudai and hope for the best. I couldn't have recommended a particular place, but the centre of Tenjin is full of bars and clubs so I'm sure he would have hit somewhere soon. Funny to be talked to by people as if they know you - I find that a lot with other foreigners here, we sort of catch eyes and smile like 'we're both foreigners in this country, aren't we?' Sometimes they even say hello.

On Sunday our friend Takuya (who we share a culture class with) organised a trip to Kumamoto for us. He rented a big car and drove us all the way himself. Our first stop was an old Japanese castle (Kumamoto Castle) - a really huge beautiful building in a big park lamdscape. There was a museum on the inside and we saw some interesting scale models of the buildings. We climbed right up to the top and looked out of the windows, you could see for a very long way. It was really beautiful and awe inspiring.

View from the top of the castle

You could see so far!

There were a few guys dressed up as Samurai, one of them David freaked out by pretending to fight him! And we also saw a zen garden that was seriously raked, and a beautifully painted room and some replicas of beautiful painted doors.

Sophie and Mounir

Shiny gold room

Beautiful painted doors...

We stopped to buy lunch at a 7/11 - I had a tempura bento, and then we set off to go to Mount Aso. We got a little bit lost along the way, and climbed a little up another mountain. The views were beautiful, although the weather was so cold I wanted to hide inside my coat! Mount Aso itself was very cool - the smoke rising from the crater all the time that smelled strongly of sulphur - it hurt my throat and made me cough, but I wanted to stay and watch because I'd never seen anything like it. It was really amazing.

Titanic on a roof =p

My favourite part of the day was the visit to the onsen (hot spring). The place we went to is called Kurokawa (black river), there are lots of hot spring baths there to choose from. The price to get in was only 500 yen, for 2 hours time. We chose one to go to, that had women and men's separate baths inside, and a mixed bath outside. First you go through to a little changing room, where you put all your clothes and things into a basket. Then you go through to the first room, a bath inside, with little stools and showers by one wall. You have to wash your body and your hair if you want to before you get into the bath. You wash in the showers, and then you use a little wooden bowl to splash the hot water on yourself before you get in. The water is very very hot, and the steam is really thick, it's hard to see very well in the dim lights.

Through another door there is a second pool, which is partly inside and partly outside. This one was my favourite part - women's only, a soft breeze running through it, you could see the stars in the sky. It was dark already, and the air was very cold, but in the hot spring the cool air is refreshing and nice, because the water is just so hot. There were 2 streams of water running down from the ceiling that you could use to massage your back - although I couldn't for long because it was so strong and started to get painful.

Through a little tunnel from that room, and out of another door, there was the mixed bath. This one was totally outside, surrounded by trees. It was so beautiful, the night sky above and the steam rising from the water. The guys came out too for a bit, but I think they were more embarrassed than us!

I was worried about being naked in front of everyone at first. You are allowed to take a towel in to cover the front of your body while you are walking around, but really it doesn't cover that much and there comes a point where you have to just get over it and be naked when you want to get into the water. I was nervous at first, but it quickly became pretty natural and normal, especially in the low light. At one point, our friend Leila became dizzy because of the heat and fainted. Meike ran over to her to help her lie down and lift her legs up, but it was too hard to do it with the towl held in front her her, so she just threw it to the ground and shouted "fuck it, throw off your towels girls!" it was the funniest thing.

I couldn't take any pictures inside obviously, but this is a pretty building

Before I left, I washed my hair with the shampoo and conditioner provided there and now my hair is super soft and smells good =]
The trip home was long and I was very tired, and also pretty headachey from the hot water and not drinking enough in the day. As soon as I got home I fell asleep. A LONG weekend, but so worth it, and so much fun.

A few other things that have happened:

• I got a package from my mum with new pyjamas in and some hot chocolate packets, fluffy socks for bed and chocolate buttons.
• The stuff I ordered from ASOS arrived and I finally have new shoes.
• I talked briefly to Alex, but he didn't have time to talk and I felt sad.
• I've slept a lot, and eaten chocolate.