one more time
for various reasons, basically laziness, i haven't been sending email updates, and now it is my last morning in japan. so what better way for me to spend my time than to send you all an email? haha. oh yes. here we go again.
on sunday andrea, jeff, and i got up very early to leave nikko and go see mark perform at a humongous gymnasium. it was right next to tokyo disneyland. at the gymnasium, there was a huge volleyball tournament. i guess it's the national hobby sport of japan. anyways, i watched for a little bit and thought of you, angela. but all of the players were adults... anyways it was still raining really hard and mark's performance got cancelled. that stunk. we had to carry all of our stuff from the train station to the gym because there were no lockers at the station, and i think jeff and andrea got mad at me. but thankfullly they were walking behind me because at one point my passport fell out of my bag and into a puddle and andrea saw it. wow. i would have been "toast."
we left the gymnasium and headed to the gorgeous new sanno hotel, a military/government hotel in the hiro-o neighborhood of tokyo. i am in shock about how nice this place is for it's super cheap prices. and it's in this ritzy international neighborhood that has a lot of embassies. we decided to hide from the rain for the afternoon, and in the evening we met up with two guys in shibuya, taylor from san diego/sacramento who travelled to burma and is now is continuing his travels around the world, and his friend hoon from korea. they live together in the same international guest house. we went to a cute organic cafe that didn't feed us enough food. then we went to an AMAZING art collective: www.designfesta.com. It was closed, but the outside of the building was really neat, and we went to the little cafe that they had in the back. we drank a few beers, mark made super wet tokyo-style okanomiyaki, and good times were had.
MONDAY
We went to Kamakura. there were tons of people at the tsurugaoka hachiman-gu shrine, i guess because there were tons of flowers in season. mostly there were many hydrangeas. my favorite was going through this little cave tunnel that had thousands of little tiny wooden buddha figurines. we ate udon for the upteenth time. then we went to kotokuin, this humongous bronze buddha. i actually really liked it. i thought it was cooler than the bronze buddha in nara, because it was outdoors and so looking up at the buddha had a gorgeous backdrop of trees. there i ate some green tea soft serve ice cream, which i eat almost every day.
next we hiked for maybe an hour. it was nice, but the path was kind of scary because it was super slippery and muddy. the mud was like clay. i almost fell once. also on the hike we saw a woman hiking with some people in her high heels, surprise surprise. i don't know how they do it. our hike ended at Zeniarai Benten Shrine, this cute little shrine that has a stream. youre supposed to dunk your money in a stream so that your wealth will get doubled. i dunked an american $20. jeff dunked a credit card (smart kid). saw some other shrine in kamakura (they all start to blend together), then headed back to tokyo.
we went BACK to shibuya (i guess that's our stomping ground for this trip) and met up with a whole bunch of people from couchsurfing.com. We went to a really cheap american-style restaurant, and i ate mushroom risotto. yummy yummy. this is who was in the crew: jeff, andrea, mark, and me. this woman keiko who i really enjoyed who i met at the couchsurfing party i went to on my first weekend in japan. her partner Kharim, who is studying in Japan and is from Mali; I was able to ask him lots of questions which was cool. Kharim's friend Pierre, who he knows from the French embassy. Mark hit it off with Pierre. Lina, the German woman that I travelled with in Kyoto and Nara. And some other couchsurfing kid who is from San Francisco. It was a huge crew.
After dinner we went to karaoke! It was very fun to be with such a large crew. We rented a little karaoke room, which Ben says also exist in boston so i think we may go there this fall. It was mad fun. The rates are by the hour per person, with free drinks. I stayed for two hours and drank a little too much lychee liquor...it was just so sweet that i guess i didn't realize how much i was drinking...whoops. i sang these songs: one way or another-blondie; just a girl-no doubt;
california dreaming- the beach boys; father figure-george michael. it was cool to have people singing in english, japanese, and german.
TUESDAY
well it took me a pretty long time to recover from karaoke. we decided to chill out at the hotel for most of tuesday during the day. i am ok with that. we ordered room service (for the first time ever--so nice!) and i ate an avocado-tomato-mozzerela omelette (can i say i was craving california food?), home fries, and some corned beef hash. mmmmm.
towards the afternoon we headed out and went to shibuya/harajuku AGAIN! we wanted to go back to the art collective to see the actual studio space. mark talked to a guy who works there, and he might play accordion with a little musical group some weekend! we got interviewed, maybe our pictures are on the website.
then i got my haircut at a super hip salon in harajuku, and andrea took pictures. people didn't really speak english, so it was kind of hard, but i really do love getting my hair cut in foreign countries. the salon was two floors, and on the bottom floor one guy who getting dreadlocks (4 people were working on his hair) and a girl was getting extensions. this was the most intense haircut i have ever gotten in my life. first i had a consultation with a male hairstylist and a girl who spoke a little english. then the girl gave me a really long intense shampoo during which my face was covered wtih a little towel. she gave me a head massage, cleaned my ears, and then intricately wrapped my head with a towel. next the hairstylist came back and meticulously cut my hair. i really feel like every hair follice was attended to. he also had an attendant who handed him scissors and things. it was meticulous, man. andrea says my haircut looks about the same, except shorter and a little bit bettter styled. i'm ok with that. after that, some other guy gave me a post-cut rinse and massaged...i think it was conditioner...into my head. he cleaned my ears again. then the hairstylist came back and dried and styled my hair. the entire thing took probably 1.5 hours. man. it was cool, though.
then we met up with mark and jeff again and went to a SHABU SHABU restaurant in shiboya, courtesy of my mother (thanks mom). this place was intense. for about $15 each, we had all you can eat shabu shabu for an hour and a half. this is how shabu shabu works: you get this big bowl of boiling broth that keeps boiling on the table. you get a plate of vegetables. you get a plate of really thinly cut beef. you put the veggies in to cook. then you dip the beef slices in, for about 30 seconds each, then take them out and dunk them in either peanut sauce or soy sauce, and eat with rice. you can also eat the veggies. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. i was the master of ceremonies and kept having the waiters refill our food. yum yum yum.
after that we went to this club where a japanese girl rock band called swarms arm was playing. we didnt know anything about them, but it was pretty cool. i got a shirt. then we went home.
WEDNESDAY
we got up semi-early and went to the ghibli museum, by marks suggestion. it was super cool and i am glad we all went. ghibli is sort of like the disney of japan, they made this really famous film totoro. we watched an exclusive film screening with characters from totoro. my favorite part was the claymation exhibit.
after that mark treated us to a crazy adventure in hakone. you take all of these crazy forms of transportation: first you take a regular train out of the city. then you take an oldschool train that has switchbacks up a beautiful mountain. then you take this other train that is ultra modern that goes directly up a hill. then you take a gondola. then you get to this really cool volcano where you can eat sulfur-blackened eggs. yum. then you take another gondola to a lake. then you ride a pirate ship that has a picture of some westerner from the 1600s (what?) then we walked around for awhile, got food at 7eleven, and took a bus back to the regular train station. whoa. mark took us to his favorite bar near the military base that serves okinawa style food, has american rock music, and a cute girl bartender. then we stopped by marks base and he picked up his car and drove us home.
THURSDAY!
we slept for maybe 3 hours and went to the tsukiji fish market! it was pretty amazing; im glad that we went. there were live octopus, and we got to see the bluefin tuna auction. there was fish blood everywhere. and now there is some weird white gunk on my shoes. afterwards, at 630am, we ate some sushi. it's practically like getting food at the source...
then we came back to the hotel and i wrote super long email.
home to san francisco! i am excited to return to the land of the queer.
i love you all!
sarah estelle
on sunday andrea, jeff, and i got up very early to leave nikko and go see mark perform at a humongous gymnasium. it was right next to tokyo disneyland. at the gymnasium, there was a huge volleyball tournament. i guess it's the national hobby sport of japan. anyways, i watched for a little bit and thought of you, angela. but all of the players were adults... anyways it was still raining really hard and mark's performance got cancelled. that stunk. we had to carry all of our stuff from the train station to the gym because there were no lockers at the station, and i think jeff and andrea got mad at me. but thankfullly they were walking behind me because at one point my passport fell out of my bag and into a puddle and andrea saw it. wow. i would have been "toast."
we left the gymnasium and headed to the gorgeous new sanno hotel, a military/government hotel in the hiro-o neighborhood of tokyo. i am in shock about how nice this place is for it's super cheap prices. and it's in this ritzy international neighborhood that has a lot of embassies. we decided to hide from the rain for the afternoon, and in the evening we met up with two guys in shibuya, taylor from san diego/sacramento who travelled to burma and is now is continuing his travels around the world, and his friend hoon from korea. they live together in the same international guest house. we went to a cute organic cafe that didn't feed us enough food. then we went to an AMAZING art collective: www.designfesta.com. It was closed, but the outside of the building was really neat, and we went to the little cafe that they had in the back. we drank a few beers, mark made super wet tokyo-style okanomiyaki, and good times were had.
MONDAY
We went to Kamakura. there were tons of people at the tsurugaoka hachiman-gu shrine, i guess because there were tons of flowers in season. mostly there were many hydrangeas. my favorite was going through this little cave tunnel that had thousands of little tiny wooden buddha figurines. we ate udon for the upteenth time. then we went to kotokuin, this humongous bronze buddha. i actually really liked it. i thought it was cooler than the bronze buddha in nara, because it was outdoors and so looking up at the buddha had a gorgeous backdrop of trees. there i ate some green tea soft serve ice cream, which i eat almost every day.
next we hiked for maybe an hour. it was nice, but the path was kind of scary because it was super slippery and muddy. the mud was like clay. i almost fell once. also on the hike we saw a woman hiking with some people in her high heels, surprise surprise. i don't know how they do it. our hike ended at Zeniarai Benten Shrine, this cute little shrine that has a stream. youre supposed to dunk your money in a stream so that your wealth will get doubled. i dunked an american $20. jeff dunked a credit card (smart kid). saw some other shrine in kamakura (they all start to blend together), then headed back to tokyo.
we went BACK to shibuya (i guess that's our stomping ground for this trip) and met up with a whole bunch of people from couchsurfing.com. We went to a really cheap american-style restaurant, and i ate mushroom risotto. yummy yummy. this is who was in the crew: jeff, andrea, mark, and me. this woman keiko who i really enjoyed who i met at the couchsurfing party i went to on my first weekend in japan. her partner Kharim, who is studying in Japan and is from Mali; I was able to ask him lots of questions which was cool. Kharim's friend Pierre, who he knows from the French embassy. Mark hit it off with Pierre. Lina, the German woman that I travelled with in Kyoto and Nara. And some other couchsurfing kid who is from San Francisco. It was a huge crew.
After dinner we went to karaoke! It was very fun to be with such a large crew. We rented a little karaoke room, which Ben says also exist in boston so i think we may go there this fall. It was mad fun. The rates are by the hour per person, with free drinks. I stayed for two hours and drank a little too much lychee liquor...it was just so sweet that i guess i didn't realize how much i was drinking...whoops. i sang these songs: one way or another-blondie; just a girl-no doubt;
california dreaming- the beach boys; father figure-george michael. it was cool to have people singing in english, japanese, and german.
TUESDAY
well it took me a pretty long time to recover from karaoke. we decided to chill out at the hotel for most of tuesday during the day. i am ok with that. we ordered room service (for the first time ever--so nice!) and i ate an avocado-tomato-mozzerela omelette (can i say i was craving california food?), home fries, and some corned beef hash. mmmmm.
towards the afternoon we headed out and went to shibuya/harajuku AGAIN! we wanted to go back to the art collective to see the actual studio space. mark talked to a guy who works there, and he might play accordion with a little musical group some weekend! we got interviewed, maybe our pictures are on the website.
then i got my haircut at a super hip salon in harajuku, and andrea took pictures. people didn't really speak english, so it was kind of hard, but i really do love getting my hair cut in foreign countries. the salon was two floors, and on the bottom floor one guy who getting dreadlocks (4 people were working on his hair) and a girl was getting extensions. this was the most intense haircut i have ever gotten in my life. first i had a consultation with a male hairstylist and a girl who spoke a little english. then the girl gave me a really long intense shampoo during which my face was covered wtih a little towel. she gave me a head massage, cleaned my ears, and then intricately wrapped my head with a towel. next the hairstylist came back and meticulously cut my hair. i really feel like every hair follice was attended to. he also had an attendant who handed him scissors and things. it was meticulous, man. andrea says my haircut looks about the same, except shorter and a little bit bettter styled. i'm ok with that. after that, some other guy gave me a post-cut rinse and massaged...i think it was conditioner...into my head. he cleaned my ears again. then the hairstylist came back and dried and styled my hair. the entire thing took probably 1.5 hours. man. it was cool, though.
then we met up with mark and jeff again and went to a SHABU SHABU restaurant in shiboya, courtesy of my mother (thanks mom). this place was intense. for about $15 each, we had all you can eat shabu shabu for an hour and a half. this is how shabu shabu works: you get this big bowl of boiling broth that keeps boiling on the table. you get a plate of vegetables. you get a plate of really thinly cut beef. you put the veggies in to cook. then you dip the beef slices in, for about 30 seconds each, then take them out and dunk them in either peanut sauce or soy sauce, and eat with rice. you can also eat the veggies. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. i was the master of ceremonies and kept having the waiters refill our food. yum yum yum.
after that we went to this club where a japanese girl rock band called swarms arm was playing. we didnt know anything about them, but it was pretty cool. i got a shirt. then we went home.
WEDNESDAY
we got up semi-early and went to the ghibli museum, by marks suggestion. it was super cool and i am glad we all went. ghibli is sort of like the disney of japan, they made this really famous film totoro. we watched an exclusive film screening with characters from totoro. my favorite part was the claymation exhibit.
after that mark treated us to a crazy adventure in hakone. you take all of these crazy forms of transportation: first you take a regular train out of the city. then you take an oldschool train that has switchbacks up a beautiful mountain. then you take this other train that is ultra modern that goes directly up a hill. then you take a gondola. then you get to this really cool volcano where you can eat sulfur-blackened eggs. yum. then you take another gondola to a lake. then you ride a pirate ship that has a picture of some westerner from the 1600s (what?) then we walked around for awhile, got food at 7eleven, and took a bus back to the regular train station. whoa. mark took us to his favorite bar near the military base that serves okinawa style food, has american rock music, and a cute girl bartender. then we stopped by marks base and he picked up his car and drove us home.
THURSDAY!
we slept for maybe 3 hours and went to the tsukiji fish market! it was pretty amazing; im glad that we went. there were live octopus, and we got to see the bluefin tuna auction. there was fish blood everywhere. and now there is some weird white gunk on my shoes. afterwards, at 630am, we ate some sushi. it's practically like getting food at the source...
then we came back to the hotel and i wrote super long email.
home to san francisco! i am excited to return to the land of the queer.
i love you all!
sarah estelle