I'm officially on spring break and this time tomorrow I'll be on a night-bus heading for Tokyo, and then I'm considering a little excursion to the south of the country.
It suddenly occured to me that I still haven't blogged about my Christmas travels, so I'll breifly chat about that now. I went to Sendai, Tokyo, Ise, Osaka, Kyoto, and Niigata, spending 2 or 3 nights in each place before coming back to AIU.
Sendai
Getting to Sendai was a pain in the arse. I was already using the 'Seichun 18 Kippu' (a cheap train ticket that requires you to take the slowest route possible, travel all day and make 5 or 6 changes per journey), then 'high winds' meant that one of the trains didn't move for over an hour, and hen we got herded back and forth between about 3 more trains in as many stations before finally moving again. By the time I reached sendai I was about 3 hours behind schedule.
Sendai was awesome, though. I'd been told to try the famous 'gyutan' (cow's tongue), so I decided to do that as soon as I arrived (the station alone has a good half a dozen gyutan restaurants), but the queues were too long and the prices a bit too high for me, so I found a bar that was selling gyutan stew at a much more reasonable price.
After some walking aroun to get my bearings I found an internet cafe and holed up for the night. Internet cafe's in Japan are at the same time awesome and vile. Awesome because it's a cheap room for the night with free internet access, free soft-drinks and ice-cream and even a shower. Vile because... well I don't wish to describe some of the noises I heard coming from some of the other cubilces. I feel sorry for the cleaners.
The next day I went to Sendai Castle. It's actually just the base of a castle, but from there is a pretty spectacular view of the city... and a rainbow:
I'm a sucker for high views of cities. Especially at night, so that evening I found a tall building and went as high as I could get:
Tokyo
My friend Anna, from back in Newcastle, kindly offered me room at the inn over Xmas, so I didn't have to sleep in a barn. On during the day we met some Newcastle chums, Henry, Ina, Cesca, as well as my AIU friend Qwen, for a Karaoke session in Shibuya. Of course, being Xmas, Slade was essential. It was awesome to be able to spend Xmas day in the company of friends.
I hadn't been too fussed about being away from home at that time, but I was glad not to be spending the day alone. In the evening, after a delicious dinner of tomato ramen with Qwen, Aishah and Qwen's mum, I returned to Anna's and had a short but sweet Xmas skype session with my family.
Ise
My friend Mariko, who had been on exchange in Newcastle last year, invited a few of us to her house in Ise, Mie prefecture. Mariko, Nao and Emma met me off the train and we drove to Mariko's house. The house was gorgeous and her family were very kind, and kept us well fed with all manner of delectable food. The next day we went to Ise-jingu, a huge labyrinth of shrines, paths and bridges and the last place I'd expect to bump into a fellow AIU student. It was such a surprise when a girl came up to me out of nowhere saying "What are you doing here?" that it took me ages to realise who she was.
After that crazy random happenstance, we went for a wander round the shops and had some expensive but delicious Tekone-zushi, a kind of sushi for which Ise is famed.
Osaka
When I arrived in Osaka it was getting late so I found a nice high vantage point, The Umeda Floating Garden. This place was full of couples, and I felt like a bit of a lurker wandering around on my own, but I did that the opportunity to treat myself to some ridiculously expensive food:
That night I found a sports bar near the hotel and managed to convince the very attractive girl behind the bar (in Japanese, I might add) to change the channel so that I could watch the Spurs V Newcastle game while slowly getting drunk before stumbling back to the hotel via McDonalds at 3 in the morning.
The next Day I met up with Emma who was stopping of in Osaka for the day on her way back to Hiroshima from Mariko's place. We visited Osaka Castle, which atually had a castle on it this time, and rode on a giant ferris wheel for some more nice views of the city:
Then we ate Okonomiyaki (which Osaka is famous for apparently - it seems every town in Japan is famous for one dish or another), and wandered around for a bit to kill time before Emma had to catch the bus.
Kyoto
The next day I mooched around in Osaka for a while before catching a train to Kyoto. It somehow took me more than two hours to even work out how to get out of the station and to the hostel I had booked. But we got there in the end. I dumped my stuff and then met up with Eri, another friend who was studying abroad in Newcastle last year. It took us ages to find an Izakaya that wasn't turning away customers. This was the New year weekend, so everywhere was packed to the rafters. We finally found a place, had some food and a drink and then went to a purikura.
Purikura is short for 'print club', those very girly photo booths that let you edit the pictures with hearts and stars and all things pink. They are so girly in fact, that men are forbidden from that floor of the building unless they are accompanied by a lady. So, I was allowed to be there... but not everyone plays by the rules, apparently, because hanging around on his own was... I wouldn't even call him a cross-dresser. He was a man in a skirt... with a 5 o'clock shadow. He'd put no effort whatsoever into trying to look female, but I guess that's the machine's job.
After I parted ways with Eri, I headed back to the hostel, and the next day I woke up late, looked out of the window, and Kyoto was covered in snow. My footwear isn't exactly up to par, and depite living in Akita, which is famous for its snow, I've still managed to avoid buying a new pair. But after a couple of hours of geisha-spotting in Gion (I didn't spot any geisha) my feet were soaking wet and I couldn't feel my toes to the point where I nearly couldn't walk.
I decdied to go shoe shopping before the New Years Celebrations kicked in. There were plenty of shoe-shops to choose from, and the sales had kicked in, so there were some good prices, but there was nothing in my size. So, knowing that I'd be spending the rest of the night standing in the freezing cold, I decided to wear my a plastic bag between two socks on each foot. It made a horrible noise when I walked but my feet stayed dry :-)
It was time to go back to Yasaka shrine for the New Years Celebration... it was fun, even if it did involve standing in a crowd of thousands in the freezing cold, a crowd which collectively managed to miss midnight because nobody could hear the famous tolling of the bells that were supposed to mark the turning of the new year. Still, it was a good night, and I did get the chance to eat heart-disease in a bun, the fattest burger I've ever eaten, complete with fried egg, bacon and cheese. Heavenly!
The next day I headed to the famous Golden Pavilion and the lake around it was frozen. For some reason, I'd always expected it to be bigger, but it was still impressive. Although I would call that yellow, personally.:
I found out my friend Ina was in town with her sister and parents, so I went to meet them, and we wandered around in search of ramen. After dinner I said good bye and headed back to sleep.
Niigata
Kyoto to Niigata on the Seichun 18 ticket takes the best part of 12 hours. I was only staying one night, and by the time I arrived there wasn't much time to do anything. I had secured a couch for the night courtesy of the awesome Ryoko (through Couchsurfing.org), who kept me well watered with sake and shared her osechi with me, which is a special kind of bento box given at New Year's.
The next day, Ryoko drove me to the station, taking me to several places on the way, including her workplace, which happens to be a tall building with an alright view of the city, and the market, where we ate some delicious meat and fish for breakfast:
And then I was on the next train back to Akita (well, 5 trains).
So that's that long-awaited post out the way. Other noteworth stuff has happened since then, but they can wait for another post.
Bye for now! x
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