First few days
So it`s been a hectic few days! Mom got in on Wednesday, (guess who just missed her train and was a couple minutes late?) and we went out for proper ramen before coming back to my place and mom falling asleep while I frantically finished my paper. >.<
Thursday was more frantic paper finishing while waiting for the internet company to come and shut me down at noon. They showed up half an hour early, just as I found my last source and quoted it. What a close call!
paper finished and saved in a printable format, we went off to the bank and were nearly turned away again in regard to our travellers cheques (and the deposit of said money into my bank account for ease of use in Japan)...odd I guess they don`t normally do exchange after lunch. Then it was off to the international office to part with 31 000yen of it for last month expenses, and get the last part of my paper edited for grammar and word usage. paper printed (though my carefully constructed genkouyoushi didn`t survive the format change between .swf and .doc ；-；) then it was off to class...that was gonna start an hour later than normal. So mom and I took off for Akihabara(famous electronics and anime district 10 minute walk from my school -explination for all the non-japanophiles out there)for about an hour before I headed back for class and Mom found a quiet place to read. Then we were off for a nomikai (lit: drinking party-set dinner and all you can drink) with all my classmates. Mom had quite a few firsts, and the jet lag pills must`ve worked since we didn`t get home till nearly midnight. And my classmates were so nice, saying how fun it`s been with me there and my friends gave me a few very thoughtful gifts. (and a cake though they didn`t tell me till we were leaving! so I couldn`t share it with everyone...)
Friday was a day that pretty much everything that could go wrong, did. We got up and finished packing, ended up having to send off two boxes by sea mail (and had to carry them through the rain, no less) and couldn`t find anyone to help us finish the cake or help bring the bags to our hotel, which was keeping the big ones while we`re travelling. so we struggled to get all the bags and such into the elevator and luckily we ran into my friend and classmate for my japanese class, who both provided a good home for the rest of the cake and helped us with the bags. Which turned out to be the only bright point in the whole day since it took soooo much longer than it should have to get all the bags to Shinagawa, including at the worst point having to carry each 20 to70-ish pound bag up a LONG flight of stairs to the Yamanote line platform. Finally having dropped off the bags with the hotel, it was just under 1\2 hour till the train we needed to take left from Tokyo station (12 minutes away) and I hadn`t bought my tickets yet OR more importantly, taken the 20 minute train ride over to my university to return my key and student card. Once again, kou-san came to the rescue and promised to drop off my key and card when she next went to the university. (of course I didn`t realize till much later that I didn`t give her the present for the school as well)
So we bought the tickets, went over to Tokyo and got on our train (that used the Shinkansen[bullet train] line even!) with about 5 minutes to spare. Which, in hindsight, wouldn`t have mattered. At the station before the one we were to transfer at we seemed to be waiting an inordinatly long time. So finally after maybe 20 minutes or more I got up and went in search of a conductor. At the station we were to tranfer at there had been a `jinshin jiko` or a human-involved accident, and all the trains were stopped while the police investigated. The exchange students had always jokingly refered to train related suicides before, saying things like the chuo line was powered by the suicides since it rattled so much etc but actually being involved, even by having our train stopped by it, was a sobering experience. I hope it will remain my first and last jinshin jiko. And yes, we learned later that it really was a suicide (though there wasn`t much doubt really-it happens far to often these days to the point where the family of the deceased is charged for the clean up to try and deter jumpers. Tokyo`s Yamanote line is sometimes refered to by the nickname the suicide line.) So we callled the ryokan we were booked into and told them we were going to be late and if it was possible for us to still get our dinner even though we didn`t have any hope of checking in before six. (thank god we could) So we finally switch trains and get to Nikko, only to find that the directions provided to english speaking guests were rather misleading -10 minutes refered to the drive rather than the *25 minute UPHILL WALK* that we were faced with...nor was the romaji that was all we could see on any of the forms on any sign so we ended up walking past the hotel before back tracking and getting some more directions. Mom was pretty wilted by then, as was I since the taking of the very heavy suitcases to the hotel killed our arms. As I type, my arms are still aching. Luckily once we checked in, we got to eat within 15 minutes (a very nice Japanese dinner- more food firsts for mom, including sashimi, that was beautifully arranged and cooked) and visited the baths right after dinner for mom`s first public bathing experience, though luckily the public was constituted of only me that night. I think we were in bed by 9.
Saturday was much, much better. Up for japanese style breakfast, and then out to all the shrines and temples that make up Nikko`s world heritage site, and the discovering of cicadas, a VERY NOISY insect that chirps all through the summer before dying. The shrines and temples sure were something. Very ornate- the Shogun brought out 15 000 artisans to decorate the shrine complex, which include the famous `see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil` monkey carvings. Hopefully next update I can do from my computer so I can upload some of my pictures for you all to see. For now, there are some older pictures of Nikko availible in my online gallery. (http://afreak.ca/gallery/albums.php) After we finished slogging up and down stairs to the various temples, the last stop of the day before heading to Shoko`s house in Hitachi was up to the Lake Chuzenji area, specifically to see the 97 metre Kegon falls. But of course the rain threatening down below meant inpenetrable mist up at Chuzenji, so we couldn`t see Keigon at all but we did eat dango (a japanese sweet made of glutonous rice balls on a stick dipped in a sweet glaze) and bought some souveniers. We then took the bus back to the hotel and then back to the station with plenty of time to spare. The trip to Hitachi was made with no glitches and included a very sweet young girl with what must have been her grandparents, who were making origami butterflies. They then proceeded to give some of the butterflies and other fish made from the plastic cord stuff you use to seal boxes to the other foreigners on the train.
Hitachi has been quite nice and quiet, well until about 4pm. We had a huge breakfast, went on a long walk and then went for Kaiseki cuisine (which is highly traditional, beautiful and EXTREMELY expensive...we`re talking at starting at 5000yen per person!)After our very long, course by small, artfully arranged course, we went for a walk in the park across the street. It`s really quite something; it`s all built atop of a water treatment facility, and even uses some of the clean water to run though the park in a man made stream. There was a gym, 4 soccer fields surrounded by a track, the park with the water features, tennis courts and cricket courts all integrated into this facility. Afterwards we went up the main mountain in Hitachi to see the shrine and go to the observation tower at the top for dioramic views of hitachi and the coast on one side and the `mountains` on the other. However, when we were coming down from the observation deck Shoko slipped and fell, injuring her ankle. At first we thought it was only twisted, but by the time we got home it had swelled to twice it`s normal size. >.< Being Sunday, all we could do was phone the doctor for advice so tommorows schedule will include a trip to the hospital. Hopefully, it won`t be anything serious, since Shoko returns to Australia Aug 4.
Well, we`re off to Kyoto tommorow at about 3pm, and it will be so hard to say good bye to Shoko again. Catch you later everyone!
Thursday was more frantic paper finishing while waiting for the internet company to come and shut me down at noon. They showed up half an hour early, just as I found my last source and quoted it. What a close call!
paper finished and saved in a printable format, we went off to the bank and were nearly turned away again in regard to our travellers cheques (and the deposit of said money into my bank account for ease of use in Japan)...odd I guess they don`t normally do exchange after lunch. Then it was off to the international office to part with 31 000yen of it for last month expenses, and get the last part of my paper edited for grammar and word usage. paper printed (though my carefully constructed genkouyoushi didn`t survive the format change between .swf and .doc ；-；) then it was off to class...that was gonna start an hour later than normal. So mom and I took off for Akihabara(famous electronics and anime district 10 minute walk from my school -explination for all the non-japanophiles out there)for about an hour before I headed back for class and Mom found a quiet place to read. Then we were off for a nomikai (lit: drinking party-set dinner and all you can drink) with all my classmates. Mom had quite a few firsts, and the jet lag pills must`ve worked since we didn`t get home till nearly midnight. And my classmates were so nice, saying how fun it`s been with me there and my friends gave me a few very thoughtful gifts. (and a cake though they didn`t tell me till we were leaving! so I couldn`t share it with everyone...)
Friday was a day that pretty much everything that could go wrong, did. We got up and finished packing, ended up having to send off two boxes by sea mail (and had to carry them through the rain, no less) and couldn`t find anyone to help us finish the cake or help bring the bags to our hotel, which was keeping the big ones while we`re travelling. so we struggled to get all the bags and such into the elevator and luckily we ran into my friend and classmate for my japanese class, who both provided a good home for the rest of the cake and helped us with the bags. Which turned out to be the only bright point in the whole day since it took soooo much longer than it should have to get all the bags to Shinagawa, including at the worst point having to carry each 20 to70-ish pound bag up a LONG flight of stairs to the Yamanote line platform. Finally having dropped off the bags with the hotel, it was just under 1\2 hour till the train we needed to take left from Tokyo station (12 minutes away) and I hadn`t bought my tickets yet OR more importantly, taken the 20 minute train ride over to my university to return my key and student card. Once again, kou-san came to the rescue and promised to drop off my key and card when she next went to the university. (of course I didn`t realize till much later that I didn`t give her the present for the school as well)
So we bought the tickets, went over to Tokyo and got on our train (that used the Shinkansen[bullet train] line even!) with about 5 minutes to spare. Which, in hindsight, wouldn`t have mattered. At the station before the one we were to transfer at we seemed to be waiting an inordinatly long time. So finally after maybe 20 minutes or more I got up and went in search of a conductor. At the station we were to tranfer at there had been a `jinshin jiko` or a human-involved accident, and all the trains were stopped while the police investigated. The exchange students had always jokingly refered to train related suicides before, saying things like the chuo line was powered by the suicides since it rattled so much etc but actually being involved, even by having our train stopped by it, was a sobering experience. I hope it will remain my first and last jinshin jiko. And yes, we learned later that it really was a suicide (though there wasn`t much doubt really-it happens far to often these days to the point where the family of the deceased is charged for the clean up to try and deter jumpers. Tokyo`s Yamanote line is sometimes refered to by the nickname the suicide line.) So we callled the ryokan we were booked into and told them we were going to be late and if it was possible for us to still get our dinner even though we didn`t have any hope of checking in before six. (thank god we could) So we finally switch trains and get to Nikko, only to find that the directions provided to english speaking guests were rather misleading -10 minutes refered to the drive rather than the *25 minute UPHILL WALK* that we were faced with...nor was the romaji that was all we could see on any of the forms on any sign so we ended up walking past the hotel before back tracking and getting some more directions. Mom was pretty wilted by then, as was I since the taking of the very heavy suitcases to the hotel killed our arms. As I type, my arms are still aching. Luckily once we checked in, we got to eat within 15 minutes (a very nice Japanese dinner- more food firsts for mom, including sashimi, that was beautifully arranged and cooked) and visited the baths right after dinner for mom`s first public bathing experience, though luckily the public was constituted of only me that night. I think we were in bed by 9.
Saturday was much, much better. Up for japanese style breakfast, and then out to all the shrines and temples that make up Nikko`s world heritage site, and the discovering of cicadas, a VERY NOISY insect that chirps all through the summer before dying. The shrines and temples sure were something. Very ornate- the Shogun brought out 15 000 artisans to decorate the shrine complex, which include the famous `see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil` monkey carvings. Hopefully next update I can do from my computer so I can upload some of my pictures for you all to see. For now, there are some older pictures of Nikko availible in my online gallery. (http://afreak.ca/gallery/albums.php) After we finished slogging up and down stairs to the various temples, the last stop of the day before heading to Shoko`s house in Hitachi was up to the Lake Chuzenji area, specifically to see the 97 metre Kegon falls. But of course the rain threatening down below meant inpenetrable mist up at Chuzenji, so we couldn`t see Keigon at all but we did eat dango (a japanese sweet made of glutonous rice balls on a stick dipped in a sweet glaze) and bought some souveniers. We then took the bus back to the hotel and then back to the station with plenty of time to spare. The trip to Hitachi was made with no glitches and included a very sweet young girl with what must have been her grandparents, who were making origami butterflies. They then proceeded to give some of the butterflies and other fish made from the plastic cord stuff you use to seal boxes to the other foreigners on the train.
Hitachi has been quite nice and quiet, well until about 4pm. We had a huge breakfast, went on a long walk and then went for Kaiseki cuisine (which is highly traditional, beautiful and EXTREMELY expensive...we`re talking at starting at 5000yen per person!)After our very long, course by small, artfully arranged course, we went for a walk in the park across the street. It`s really quite something; it`s all built atop of a water treatment facility, and even uses some of the clean water to run though the park in a man made stream. There was a gym, 4 soccer fields surrounded by a track, the park with the water features, tennis courts and cricket courts all integrated into this facility. Afterwards we went up the main mountain in Hitachi to see the shrine and go to the observation tower at the top for dioramic views of hitachi and the coast on one side and the `mountains` on the other. However, when we were coming down from the observation deck Shoko slipped and fell, injuring her ankle. At first we thought it was only twisted, but by the time we got home it had swelled to twice it`s normal size. >.< Being Sunday, all we could do was phone the doctor for advice so tommorows schedule will include a trip to the hospital. Hopefully, it won`t be anything serious, since Shoko returns to Australia Aug 4.
Well, we`re off to Kyoto tommorow at about 3pm, and it will be so hard to say good bye to Shoko again. Catch you later everyone!