Back :D My homeland has me back!
So yesterday evening (very late in the evening) I got back from Japan after 24 hours of travelling :D
Oh boy, oh boy ... I have so much to tell you guys, so much to write about. At the same time, though, I am sore all over from travelling with 30+ kg of luggage and I'm also so happy to be back, it's ridiculous.
1.) I was gone for a little over three weeks, 23 days to be exact. The weather in Tokyo was ... insane, to say the least. 35° almost every day. It was madeningly hot. I am not even kidding. We spend six days in Kusatsu, which is a nice Spa town in the Gunma Prefecture and it was freaking freezing there!! Me, being totally unprepared for anything colder than 25°, was cold most of the time. The onsen we visited and the ultra-hot baths our hostel-dad poured for us made more than up for it though.
2.) First impression:
Woah ... my first impression of Japan was just so different than all I ever imagined. I don't know if you guys do that too, but I rely mostly on my sense of smell to give me first impressions. My room smells a certain way that will always be "home" for me. Spain smells a way that will always be "family". The streets in my home-town smell a certain way, so does work and so does, now, also Japan. It's crazy, but my first impression was very nice. I had heard from friends before, that they thought Tokyo was quite ugly and I really couldn't agree - sure, it's not Germany with it's "always has to always be clean, or else"-mentality, but I just found it refreshingly different and not at all ugly.
3.) Arrival:
We arrived and left from Narita Airport - and I was quite glad we got picked up when we got there, as the train-system was still a total mystery to us at that point (more on that later).
We were a group of 10 when we arrived and had to wait for a few hours for another group who arrived with a later flight and we were waiting with the people who picked us up, which was quite nice. I tried one of the japanese vending machienes for the first time and decided I don't like Macha-Tea right then and there ;D
We all got a PASMO card there too, which turned out to be really helpful in the stress that is the Tokyo Train-System.
4.) Hotels/Motels/Hostels:
We stayed at four different accomodations in my time here. The first two weeks we spend entirely at the "国立オリンピック記念青少年総合センター" (which, funnily enough, was the old Olympic Camp for the Kokuritsu Stadium) - the first ten days we spend in one building and then, three days before we left for Kusatsu, we had to change buildings for the remaining nights.
The first ten days we all got single rooms with a bed and a desk + chair and each room had an aircon, which was THE MOST USEFUL THING EVER! :D It was awesome having a single room too - nobody to bother you when you have to write a paper for college until 4 a.m. ;D
We had a big common-room with a television and this completely awesome traditional japanese bath. I really regret not having taken any pictures of that - but they are basically one of my favorite japanese things now - the bathrooms :D
Then, when we had to change buildings, we had to share a four-bed room for a few nights, but that was okay. Although I wouldn't recommend it for a longer stay because your roommates are going to becoming really annoying really fast.
The baths in this building were really huge and sooo comfortable OMG. Best thing ever!
In Kusatsu, we also slept in four-bed rooms, two german students with two japanese students in each since we were there for language training and that helped to promote that a little :)
Although the beds were really hard here (we slept on Tatami-beds with a thin futon on top of it) and a lot of my friends were complaining about it, I slept like an angel :D I think it helped that the covers were really really thick and since the weather in Kusatsu was rather cold, sleeping in such a comfortably warm place really helped :D
Right after Kusatsu, me and four other girls stayed in Tokyo for two more nights, since our flight only left yesterday. We stayed at the "Sakura Hostel" in Asakusa and we were really happy with it - the staff was absolutely incredibly helpful and super-fluent in english (which helped but wasn't even that necessary in the end) and the accomodation per se was really comfortable to - the beds, the showers, all the offers that were included. It was really nice, I'd totally recommend it! (Although maybe, for a better access to parts of the city on the Yamanote-Line, like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, you should try out the "Sakura Hostel" in Ikebukuro first - Asakusa is a very beautiful part of the city but sadly a little further away - although it's close to Akiba ;D).
5.) Food:
Loved most of it, but not all of it.
Funnily enough, japanese portions are really a hell of a lot smaller than german portions, so it was fun to see how our stomachs adapted and how some people never stopped moaning about how little food they got xD
I for one was completely satisfied :D
During our stay in Tokyo we only got breakfast, so we usually bought food at the nearby combinis and supermarkets - I ate SO MANY pans (ﾒﾛﾝﾊﾟﾝ being my absolut-forever-favorite!) and we bought frozen foods that they would heat up for us, like ramen and tonkatsu and other stuff.
We also went to eat Okonomiyaki and HayashiOmuRice (which combined two of the things I desperately wanted to eat while in Japan: Hayashi-Rice and Omu-Rice ;D) and it was simply delicious :)
The breakfast at the Olympic-Center was a huge buffet and it had all kinds of stuff, my favorite of which was usually the fish (the salmon being in the Top Ten Best Things I have ever freaking eaten in my life!) - and the orange-juice, because that was just delicious. I also ate a lot of ｶﾚﾗｲｽ and many variations of that, I ate Ramen and Udon and so many many more things!
I had to sadly realize that I do NOT like Miso-soup, though, that was kind of sad.
But I do enjoy most vegetables and loved the chahan we once got :D
Eating in general wasn't too hard but I did realize quite fast that I started missing german and spanish food xD
No pasta, no pizza, not many eggs, no hardy bread, no flour of any kind, really, no potatos ...
Don't know how I'd do a year without having any of that.
But the rice was always delicious. Although now, three weeks of eating rice almost thrice a day, I'm also kind of sick of it ... xD
6.) Arashi:
So, since I sadly couldn't make it to any of their concerts, I still went Arashi-hunting: I bought magazines of them. Lot of them. A ridiculous amount for a ridiculous summ, but I really didn't mind at all ;D
I went to Idol-Shops to get un-official pictures (also of AraFes since I was in Tokyo a few days after the concerts), I went to the Johnnys-Shop to get official ones (YAY! I REALLY WENT :D) and yeah ... that was basically it. I didn't buy any CDs or DVDs simply for the sad fact that - I didn't find any. I didn't even find Arashi photobooks. True, mostly I also wasn't really looking because we went sight-seeing and so on, but still - I sometimes felt as if Tokyo had been picked clean of Arashi stuff ^^"
So, this was a quick overview over most things. I might update if if I feel like it though :D
Oh boy, oh boy ... I have so much to tell you guys, so much to write about. At the same time, though, I am sore all over from travelling with 30+ kg of luggage and I'm also so happy to be back, it's ridiculous.
1.) I was gone for a little over three weeks, 23 days to be exact. The weather in Tokyo was ... insane, to say the least. 35° almost every day. It was madeningly hot. I am not even kidding. We spend six days in Kusatsu, which is a nice Spa town in the Gunma Prefecture and it was freaking freezing there!! Me, being totally unprepared for anything colder than 25°, was cold most of the time. The onsen we visited and the ultra-hot baths our hostel-dad poured for us made more than up for it though.
2.) First impression:
Woah ... my first impression of Japan was just so different than all I ever imagined. I don't know if you guys do that too, but I rely mostly on my sense of smell to give me first impressions. My room smells a certain way that will always be "home" for me. Spain smells a way that will always be "family". The streets in my home-town smell a certain way, so does work and so does, now, also Japan. It's crazy, but my first impression was very nice. I had heard from friends before, that they thought Tokyo was quite ugly and I really couldn't agree - sure, it's not Germany with it's "always has to always be clean, or else"-mentality, but I just found it refreshingly different and not at all ugly.
3.) Arrival:
We arrived and left from Narita Airport - and I was quite glad we got picked up when we got there, as the train-system was still a total mystery to us at that point (more on that later).
We were a group of 10 when we arrived and had to wait for a few hours for another group who arrived with a later flight and we were waiting with the people who picked us up, which was quite nice. I tried one of the japanese vending machienes for the first time and decided I don't like Macha-Tea right then and there ;D
We all got a PASMO card there too, which turned out to be really helpful in the stress that is the Tokyo Train-System.
4.) Hotels/Motels/Hostels:
We stayed at four different accomodations in my time here. The first two weeks we spend entirely at the "国立オリンピック記念青少年総合センター" (which, funnily enough, was the old Olympic Camp for the Kokuritsu Stadium) - the first ten days we spend in one building and then, three days before we left for Kusatsu, we had to change buildings for the remaining nights.
The first ten days we all got single rooms with a bed and a desk + chair and each room had an aircon, which was THE MOST USEFUL THING EVER! :D It was awesome having a single room too - nobody to bother you when you have to write a paper for college until 4 a.m. ;D
We had a big common-room with a television and this completely awesome traditional japanese bath. I really regret not having taken any pictures of that - but they are basically one of my favorite japanese things now - the bathrooms :D
Then, when we had to change buildings, we had to share a four-bed room for a few nights, but that was okay. Although I wouldn't recommend it for a longer stay because your roommates are going to becoming really annoying really fast.
The baths in this building were really huge and sooo comfortable OMG. Best thing ever!
In Kusatsu, we also slept in four-bed rooms, two german students with two japanese students in each since we were there for language training and that helped to promote that a little :)
Although the beds were really hard here (we slept on Tatami-beds with a thin futon on top of it) and a lot of my friends were complaining about it, I slept like an angel :D I think it helped that the covers were really really thick and since the weather in Kusatsu was rather cold, sleeping in such a comfortably warm place really helped :D
Right after Kusatsu, me and four other girls stayed in Tokyo for two more nights, since our flight only left yesterday. We stayed at the "Sakura Hostel" in Asakusa and we were really happy with it - the staff was absolutely incredibly helpful and super-fluent in english (which helped but wasn't even that necessary in the end) and the accomodation per se was really comfortable to - the beds, the showers, all the offers that were included. It was really nice, I'd totally recommend it! (Although maybe, for a better access to parts of the city on the Yamanote-Line, like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, you should try out the "Sakura Hostel" in Ikebukuro first - Asakusa is a very beautiful part of the city but sadly a little further away - although it's close to Akiba ;D).
5.) Food:
Loved most of it, but not all of it.
Funnily enough, japanese portions are really a hell of a lot smaller than german portions, so it was fun to see how our stomachs adapted and how some people never stopped moaning about how little food they got xD
I for one was completely satisfied :D
During our stay in Tokyo we only got breakfast, so we usually bought food at the nearby combinis and supermarkets - I ate SO MANY pans (ﾒﾛﾝﾊﾟﾝ being my absolut-forever-favorite!) and we bought frozen foods that they would heat up for us, like ramen and tonkatsu and other stuff.
We also went to eat Okonomiyaki and HayashiOmuRice (which combined two of the things I desperately wanted to eat while in Japan: Hayashi-Rice and Omu-Rice ;D) and it was simply delicious :)
The breakfast at the Olympic-Center was a huge buffet and it had all kinds of stuff, my favorite of which was usually the fish (the salmon being in the Top Ten Best Things I have ever freaking eaten in my life!) - and the orange-juice, because that was just delicious. I also ate a lot of ｶﾚﾗｲｽ and many variations of that, I ate Ramen and Udon and so many many more things!
I had to sadly realize that I do NOT like Miso-soup, though, that was kind of sad.
But I do enjoy most vegetables and loved the chahan we once got :D
Eating in general wasn't too hard but I did realize quite fast that I started missing german and spanish food xD
No pasta, no pizza, not many eggs, no hardy bread, no flour of any kind, really, no potatos ...
Don't know how I'd do a year without having any of that.
But the rice was always delicious. Although now, three weeks of eating rice almost thrice a day, I'm also kind of sick of it ... xD
6.) Arashi:
So, since I sadly couldn't make it to any of their concerts, I still went Arashi-hunting: I bought magazines of them. Lot of them. A ridiculous amount for a ridiculous summ, but I really didn't mind at all ;D
I went to Idol-Shops to get un-official pictures (also of AraFes since I was in Tokyo a few days after the concerts), I went to the Johnnys-Shop to get official ones (YAY! I REALLY WENT :D) and yeah ... that was basically it. I didn't buy any CDs or DVDs simply for the sad fact that - I didn't find any. I didn't even find Arashi photobooks. True, mostly I also wasn't really looking because we went sight-seeing and so on, but still - I sometimes felt as if Tokyo had been picked clean of Arashi stuff ^^"
So, this was a quick overview over most things. I might update if if I feel like it though :D