Sayonara, Japan!

Today is my last full day here. A bunch of us are going shopping for souvenirs this afternoon and that:s the extent of our plans. Tomorrow I plan on checking out of the hostel at 8am and then taking a train to Tokyo and then another train to the airport. My flight leaves at 3:30 or so and I first fly to Beijing and then to LA. I:m spending the night in LA and will get into Bozeman the evening of the 30th. I have several long days of travel ahead of me. The night I`m back I`m planning on eating a big, fat, juicy burger from The Garage. After that I don`t actually care what I eat, just the convenience of eating will be nice. I would actually like to go out for sushi.

This past week we finally got to see some modern architecture. We also went to a sumo tournament which was really cool! I`ll create a slide show with my best pictures once I get back. It`ll be similar to the Europe slide show with information and stuff like that. I need to get pictures from other people as well. Among the 20 of us there is probably a good 75,000 - 100,000 pictures. Movies too.

Well, I can`t wait to talk to you all! Sayonara, Japan!

More Pictures

Weekend Update

This weekend I went to a flea market with a thousand other people. I was hoping to find some neat souvenirs but there were so many people that sometimes I couldn't even see what was for sale. I did find some postcards that have "Ingrish" on them. "Ingrish" is Japanese English. They say "e" like "i" and "l" like "r". I also went grocery shopping and was able to find what I need to make spaghetti with pancetta. Grocery shopping is always an experience! It takes about 3 times as long to shop and I still wasn't able to find mustard or mayo even though I know they have it. Other people in our group bought it for sandwiches so they showed me the packaging. Mayo comes in a bag. I'd have to say that's why I wasn't able to find it. There's a plastic container in the bag but I definitely wasn't looking for a bag. Some people were very surprised that I was able to make normal spaghetti. I eat Kellogs cornflakes for breakfast every morning and I snack on Ritz and Oreos.

A couple of you have asked about Tokyo and I'm actually in Kyoto. I won't be going to Tokyo. I've heard it's hard to get around and even more expensive than here. I don't know if there are a lot of American's here or if they are European. I definitely see Americans but I've learned not to assume the Caucasion people are Americans. You can usually tell though by how they are dressed. Europeans dress much nicer, but possibly less sensibly.

Surprisingly we hardly ate any rice in China and we don't eat a ton here. In both places it's a lot stickier than the rice I'm used to. The flavor is pretty much the same but it's hard to tell for sure because usually there's something on it. I eat a lot of curry and rice here.

The weather here has been very spring-like. It can get pretty chilly at night but thanks to China I have a warm winter coat. It's supposed to be in the low 60's later this week and I'm really looking forward to it. I usually wear a fleece pullover and a down vest in the morning and the vest comes off by afternoon as long as we're in the sun. It's been raining on and off which makes photography hard.

I'm finally starting to get ready to come home. When I don't get a good nights sleep I want to go home more. There's 4 of us in a tiny room and two of the girls snore. I barely slept last night so today is going to be a long day!

Is That Still Alive?

Last night we stayed at a Japanese inn in Toba and had a traditional Japanese dinner. I didn`t get pictures of that dinner but I did get pictures from another place that we stayed in Nara. Other people got pictures of the dinner in Toba so when I can get copies I will post them. Toba is like the sea food capital of Japan or something like that so when I say it was fresh, I mean it was fresh. The lobster was still moving as we ate it, raw.　I also ate raw red snapper and octopus. We had mussels and oysters (cooked) and squid, I don:t know if it was cooked or not. There are pictures of me gagging but I tried everything! The pictures here are of our 7 course meal in Nara. The only raw fish was tuna and salmon. The tuna was great, the salmon had some skin still on it so it was a little fishy tasting.

Pictures

My Sweet New Ride

I am now the proud owner of 2 bikes; one Treck bike in the US and one "Ex Lady" in Japan. I'll post a picture as soon as I can. There's only one computer here with access to a USB post so it's quite popular.

Our weekends are free so yesterday I just got caught up on things like my journal and laundry. Today I went and bought a bike and then cruised around the city. It's pretty easy to get around on a bike here, occasionally we have to get off and walk because there are so many people.

Tomorrow we're going to Nara for a few days and I have no idea what our accommodations will be like or if we'll have interent access there.

Just to answer a few of your questions- In Japan people don't stare at me because of my blond hair but in China they would grab me to get me in their photos...I don't really know why there was so much garbage in China. I'd imagine they don't have garbage pick up like we're used to and many people in the rural areas couldn't afford it if they did...The Olympic buildings are now just tourist attractions. We were wondering how long that will last and at what point, if ever, will they be used for competitions again. They do charge you around $7 USD to see them inside.

I'm not travel weary yet. I've settled into this routine and wish I could just keep travelling. It just makes me realize that there's so mush more of the world to see and I'm becoming less and less intimidated by it every day.

Back to Civilization

I've been in Kyoto for a few days now. The weather is much warmer here than it was in China and it feels great! The peach trees are also blossoming and at the end of the month the cherry trees should start.

Kar and I landed around noon on the 4th in Tokyo and immediately got on a train to the City where we could catcha bullet train to Kyoto. I think we made it to Kyoto by 5:30 that evening. The train ride was very comfortable but I didn't see a lot of landscape. The window was a little to see out of but it was nice to see blue sky and green mountains! Everything is very orderly here and after being in China we were in the mindset that anything and everything would run us over but that's not the case at all. People don't even jaywalk and they're very polite. The evening we arrived we had a class meeting and then proceeded to catch up with everyone and exchange tales of our independent travel. The next morning we went to a garden and temple and I think I took about 100 pictures of just the gardens. There was also a cemetery that was the most beautiful cemetery I have ever seen. I took lots of pictures of that too and I'll post them when I can borrow Alex's computer. Later in the afternoon we went to another temple that was quite as beautiful but still pretty neat. Yesterday we went to 2 more temples and saw more cool gardens but none that compared to the 1st one.

We have a student with us who's from Tokyo but studies at MSU and he's being paid by the school to be our guide. He helps out a lot at restaurants and tells us what to say. I am picking up on the language here and Daisuke (the student guide-pronounced "dice-kay") seems to enjoy teaching us slang and vulgar things to say. There is a particularly immature boy on this trip and he's having a lot of fun telling people he's a boob man. I can say "Thank you", "yes", "Excuse me", "Hello", "smells sweet", "Beautiful butterfly" and "Cheers". In China I also learned "Cheers", "No", and "Thanks".

We haven't seen any fortune cookies anywhere. I was also hoping for Generals Tsao's chicken but I think it's just an American-Chinese thing. So far the food in Japan has been pretty good. I'll be eating a lot of noodle cups. Prices are about equiv lent to the US so as you can imagine eating out needs to be limited. We're staying in a hostel that has a kitchen so we can prepare our own food and pack lunches if we have time. It's really hard to find ATMs that will accept US cards so we all have to be very careful about the amount of cash we have. Stores and restaurants rarely take cards and the ATMs will only let you take out about $100 USD at a time.

There's tragic news out of Bozeman- I don't know how far the news traveled but there was a gas explosion on main street which completely destroyed several building and blew out windows for a 2 block radius. Fortunately it was at 8 am and only one person is missing. It happened in a restaurant so if it had been at night there would have been a lot of deaths.

In China we did see the more affluent side of things. I think that's really just a result of staying in the middle of a city though. I did go a mall one evening and I couldn't afford anything. Girls about my age dress very nicely but we noticed that it doesn't seem like the Chinese age well. I'm wondering if it's just because of pollution, living conditions, lack of money, etc. In Japan they do age well and the girls about my aged are caked in make up. We noticed in China everyone is really only concerned about them self, which is understandable, and in Japan people are definitely concerned for others.

I'm almost of of time and want to get an update on the gas explosion. Internet is pretty cheap here so I'll update as often as I have time for.