Week 16: Vacation in Japan! (part 2 of 3)

 LIVING IT UP 9 DAYS IN JAPAN!

Saturday Aug 9th

• 6am on Subway to Ferry.
• 8am Hydrofoil ferry, the fast 3 hr ferry, to Fukuoka Japan.
• 1pm bought the $115 5-day JR train pass. This is the cheapest way to travel in Japan. One way on the Shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo would have been $2xx something odd dollars. I’ve learned: Money is Time. Know I understand fully why.
• 2pm-8pm Running from train to train to arrive in Hiroshima.
• 8pm-mid Met my CS host and his girlfriend; saw the original Atomic bomb dome (the whole reason I went to Hiroshima in the first place was to visit the Peace Park); ate Hiroshimas famous “Hiroshima-yaki.” unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera at that point so google it to see this wild food.
• Midnight-6am Party how I do: all-nighter baby! Rikki and his girlfriend Kouri and I bar hopped for a few hours and met Rikki’s many various friends. We ended the night partying at Barcos Club, which plays all kinds of music from Euro-trash to Bachata to Raggaeton and Hip hop. Even a few house songs!

Sunday Aug 10th

• Slept a few hours, showered, and walked to Hiroshima Peace Park, where the Atomic bomb was dropped August 6th 1945. The week I arrived was actually the anniversary week, so it was more intense with people praying and lighting candles and lanterns and placing them in the river, sounding the bell at the bell tower, and the hardest part–the Atomic Bomb Peace Museum. 2 hours were spent being schooled on all facets of the Atomic bomb–the war, the reasons, motivations and the governments justifications and ramifications for creating and dropping the bomb. By the time I reached the gift shop I was overwhelmed and was looking forward to exiting the building. However, down the hall was not the exit, it was the third–and most graphic–floor. Personal stories and details of how individuals slowly disintegrated and died over the course of weeks, how people’s skin literally melted off their bodies, and original objects showing the damage from the A-bomb. It was just too much. Once people become an individual with a name a story, things become personal. Video footage, original locks of hair that fell out, and victims school clothes with burnt holes was just too much. My vision blurred with tears as I finally had seen enough and walked out to get fresh air.
• 2pm-5am was spent in crazy transit on train. NON STOP running from train to train. I barely had time to run to a restaurant in Ogaki during the half hour wait for the Moonlight Nagara night train to Tokyo. I took a sleeping aid that night to help along the essential needs.

Monday Aug 11th

• 5am was woken up to find myself the sole soul left on the train. Stumbling off the train and way to groggy (the strongest part of the sleep aid seemed to have kicked in at 5am!), I looked for the correct exit at Tokyo Station.
• 5-6am Let me be the first to tell you I HATE Tokyo Station. It is one of the largest subway stations in the world, and complicated as can be. One hour was literally spent walking in circles at 5 in the freagin’ morning trying to find ‘exit 6.’ Only to realize the Exit’s don’t have numbers, just names. So I went back to ask directions (again) but took the wrong fork and ending up going in a huge ridiculous circle. Nevertheless, wasn’t gonna let crappy Tokyo station put a damper on my trip. Once I took an exit (who knows which one), vacations in Tokyo began.
• 6-8am Now lost above ground. Yeah, lolz it’s a foreign city. I’d like to take the time to comment on how friendly, helpful, and sweet Japanese have been to me. I was hit with a dose of culture shock after experiencing many Japanese who were willing to go the extra mile and do good deeds for a complete stranger. That’s what’s up! After simply gesturing the need to find Tokyo bldg cafe internet, this man who was walking in the opposite direction did a complete 180 degrees and literally escorted me to the city police who pointed us in the right direction. He looked at his watch and picked up the step. He pointed to the cranes at the very top of the sky scraper, saying “work.” He was in a rush, on his way to work, yet still made it a priority to help out a lost tourist. For all you country peeps who hate on us “unfriendly city jerks” you besta recognise we da junk and your generalization becomes invalid in Tokyo!
• Ginza
• Imperial Palace
• Hibiya Park. Exhausted and dehydrated, grabbed a bottle of vita-H2o and passed out with the homeless in the park. When those pesky ants kept me awake, I opened my eyes to find some man staring at me. Suffiencetly creeped out, I rolled over but was way to humid, hot, and stuffy to get any more sleep. Plus, I had finished my water, was completely hydrated, and the man was still staring so that was my cue it was time to leave.
• 2pm JR Yamanote line to Shinjuku Station. First I hit up the famous 3-story underground mall filled with restaurants and gobbled down a delicious sesame mochi filled with sweet red bean. mmmm.  This time it only took me half the time as Tokyo Sta. to find the correct exit. Once outside, wandered and gawked around at the big signs, bright lights, until a Turkish man eventually came onto me so I took off speed walking, sufficiently creeped out at his offer. Then went to the meeting place and met with Sean and Eric from Willamette University.
• 2:30pm Toured Shinjuku bldg’s: 46th floor of the Tokyo Metro Govt. Bldg. Got a FREE fan-souvenir at the canon photo shop with a flix of  sean, me, and eric pasted on–classic.
• 8:30pm Met with my host, Tarito. Ate dinner together at a delicious Sushi restaurant. Also had the bombest miso.
• 10pm Bike ride with Taro from Meguro train station back to the house. It was exhailirating, liberating and scary to ride a bike in a foreign huge city (especially since I got into some bad bike crashes in Oregon 2007).

Tuesday Aug 12 – Did I mention today is my 23rd Birthday!!!!!????!!!!!! Woot-woot!

• 2:30pm Akihabara “Electric Town.” Two years after my camera was stolen in Peru, it was time to give myself a nice birthday camera. With my hustlin’ skills and Yoshiki’s Japanese speaking and kindness we were able to score a 15% discount–in a regular store!!!! That’s the best part it wasn’t even the black market! It was a standard, duty-free store. Plus, I didn’t even have my passport on me but I used the “It’s my birthday and you should give a girl a Bday discount.” It worked! For $221 I scored a Casio Exilim ultra-slim–and if I might add an ultra-sexy–camera. 10 MegaPixels! Standard optical zoom but my camera’s a dark metallic blue badboy that’s not gonna attract attention to thieves (at least by the size) like my Pentax K1000 SLR camera with flash attachment back in Peru.
• 5:30pm Firstly, for everyone who HATES going shopping with me this has to be record time for me: in 3 hours flat we were able to hit up the quality shops and I was able to drop 220$ on my now uuber-sexy camera. Anyways, we had some time to kill before dinner, so we hit up a famous 8-floor-store. Here’s a flix from inside the store.
• I’ll leave it to you to figure out where we were! I’m not gonna advertise on this blog lolz!
• 7pm Onward to Ikebukuru. Yoshiki and I met up with Katie and her “surpise” guest who she said a) knew me b) likes me and c) set up the bday dinner reservation. It was Hiroko! We danced in the Lu’au together! The four of us went to “Lock Up” themed restaurant in Sunshine City. To get to our private table, errr — jail cell–we had to pass through a haunted house. Then, the hostest cuffed me–the birthday girl–it was pretty X-rated. I was escorted, in cuffs, to our jailcell where they threw us a bowl of grits. It actually reminded me of the stories my mother tells me about when my father was in the concentration camp, but that’s a story for a different time.

(Kevin Louis, a WU alum 2007. We were both on Crew team together. He wasnt in the group shot so had to post here to give him props for coming out on my Bday!)

Wednesday Aug 13th

• Shibuya. Everyone knows this famous intersection from Lost in Translation: This famous intersection is at Meiji dori and Miyamasosaka.
• Harajuku. It was interesting walking down the fashion street, Takadashi-dori.
• Meiji Jingumae is just across from the train station, but the huge Meiji dori shrine was covered in a construction cloth for restorations. Oh wellz. Sean took a flix of me looking bummed out and then I happily walked into Yoyogi Park. Reminded me of Central Park in NYC; in the middle of all the maddness there is a place one can go to retreat and get in touch with “nature.” (“Nature” b/c I’m from Oregon–you’ll understand the quotation marks I added to a park being “nature” when you visit Oregon. Call me a hater, I don’t care.)
• Quickly went back home, showered and unsuccessfully attempted to take a nap. This humidity madness has made me more appreciate of the cooler Oregon days. I never knew what heat really was until I came to East Asia where heat is mixed with humidity. No pun intented but, NOT COOL.
• Taro and I took off 40minutes by bike past Roppongi hills (I thought my legs were in great shape and then Taro broke it to me I was on an electric bike lol) and into Azabu-Juban. Roppongi Hills is an area that’s (obviously) famous for it’s hills. Roppongi is the richest area in Tokyo. Azabu is just a branch off of Roppongi, and these areas are frequented by the majority-foreigners. Taro and I went to Warehouse. Wednesday night is Hip hop night. The atmosphere was strange as everyone was just standing in place, looking straight ahead at the paid dancers on stage. There was no meshing and mingling like I am used to back on the W. Coast. However, I attribute this style to the dirty South more than Japan culture BECAUSE a)mostly all foreigners, of them 90% military (it’s like being back in Waikiki) b)Eventually after hearing the same whack voice on songs with really similar beats, I realized they were playing all the cuts from the dirty South. Seems like every song from down South has a dance routine b/c the only song I know the routine to is Cupid’s Shuffle and Soulja Boy. These pplz just kept doing all these dance moves. It was interesting.
• By the time some dude was tryna crash with me, I told Taro that was our cue it was time to go. Hell NO he wasn’t gonna “kick it” with me; dude had me twisted. I DANCE with people, not sleep with them! Dudes need to get it straight or I’ll set them straight. Anyways, it was only 5:15am but the sun was already out! ouch! my eyeballs and pupils were not ready for that. We had a nice 40min bike ride home.
• Right before crashing out Taro kept climbing the stairs and pulled me up to the rooftop at Sunrise. I saw all the big districts as the sun’s rays were gleaming on the sleeping buildings. It was disorienting to see where all the districts were; so glad there’s a super comprehensive subway so all I have to do is go underground and just struggle to find the right exit instead of getting utterly lost on a bunch of side streets.

Thursday Aug 14th

• SLEEP.
• My host Taro took the day off so he could be a tourist for a day and accompany me. Because I was trying to connect on Skype forever and a day, by the time we got to Tsukijishijo Fish Market there were neither fish nor people, only a trace of fishy sushi smells remained. He did show me a temple along the way:(throwing water onto this statue dude is good luck, even though one may think the contrary).
• Sumida River boat ride. Tokyo bridge tour.

• The tour ended in Asakusa, where the largest temple in Tokyo lies. Super touristy, but great just to be able to visit.
• Ditched Taro and caught up with the WU boys one last time. Took out Yoshiki to a nice Udon dinner in Shinjuku before meeting up with Kevin and Sean in Shibuya for some pre-funk:  Karaoke. Unfortunately, since Yoshiki is a police officer and lives in the dorms he had to be back by midnight. Saddness. We were all trying to be bad influences, pressuring him to pull an all nighter at the clubs with us, but he was stern in following the rules. Aren’t rules meant to be broken? hehe
• Karaoke pros:
• Warmed-up, it was time to start club hopping. Starting with a known foreign hip hop club, GasChamber, properly named:
• Atom, the second and last spot for the night, is a 3-story club. Techno, House, and Hip-hop floors. I frequented the house floor and waited for the DJ who promised me a bday drink to come through (he did). Eventually, though, that tasty bottle of Coconut Malibu caught up with Kevin as did the Sake shots with Sean, and the night ended with me happily ‘mothering’ the boys. I’m finding that I really enjoy being ‘motherly.’ Uh-oh! But hopefully I will further develop my ‘motherly skills’ before I have my first child!

Friday Aug 15th

• Friday was spent simply running those last minute errands and returning to the places to buy those things I decided were important enough, like a travel sized Mic in Akihabara, useful for calling people via skype while traveling! Hitting up Sunshine city and eating some bomb Soba, and heading to Harajuku to pick up some hot, Japanese-style-fashion shoes. However, after trying them on a second time, I had to be real with myself: my feet just didn’t fit those shoes right–when I walked my foot feel forward out of the shoe too much. However, I’ve seen lots of women in heels with their toes sticking out so maybe I shoulda just picked them up. What do you think?
• After pulling two all nighters in the club–and it being my Sabbath–Friday night I stayed in, packed up, and crashed out.

Saturday Aug 16th

• 4:30am Woke up at sunrise and said good-bye to Tokyo (for now). Enjoyed the last 20min. walk to the train station.
• You need to see how crazy it was going from Tokyo>Hiroshima in one day on the JR Seishun pass:
• MEGURO 5:13AM>5:22
• SHINAGAWA 5:29>8:43 Was Sooo tired that I completely slept thru Mt. Fuji 😦 > next time =D
• SHIZUOKA 8:49>10:04 Longest stopover permited me to buy food! After a week long desperate search, my tastebuds were VERY pleased with the MOCHI ICECREAM, flavours: sweet potato and caramel. Scrumdidillyumptious!
• HAMAMATSU 10:28>11:01
• TOYAHASHI 11:07>12:31PM
• OGAKI 12:42PM>13:18
• MAIBARA 13:30>15:00
• OFF THE SCHEDULE STOP IN OSAKA FOR SOME TAKOYAKI ;-p (see part 1/3 for details)
• HIMEGI 15:40>16:33
• AIOI 16:36>16:55
• HIROSHIMA 16:59>20:50
• After spending a good hour beautifying myself for the clubbin’ all nighter and asking which line to take to get to the Atomic bomb dome, two different strangers literally escorted me to the max stop and did all the translating for me. I’m telling you I’ve had nothing but great experiences here from the Japanese locals. Fabulous!
• Visited Atomic bomb dome again. Was able to capture a flix this time of the oginal, but restored, standing dome. The bomb exploded just a short distance above the dome. After doing some thinking, ate some more great Japanese food walked to Hachobori area where the nightlife is. Ran into acquantances from the previous week and we all headed to Barcos Night Club together.
• It’s a small world when: my aquantances said, “Phoebe, this guy just biked all the way from Tokyo to Hiroshima!” Did the glance and then a double, tripple, QUADRIPPLE take! HUH!?!?!!? He looked at me, too, but looked away unphased. So I thought maybe I didn’t know him but, I exlaimed, “that guy and I went to college togehter and even travelled to San Fran together…or it’s his identical twin!” Walking closer I grabbed him (hey, I can do that–I was in a club where guys always try to grab femals ugh) and asked, “REMMY!?!?!?” He stared at me in awe and then had his “Aha!” moment. WU students reunited in Barcos club in Hiroshima. RANDOM! The rest of the nght Remmy and I caught up. He introduced me to some 6’5/5” professional baseball player (no clue who he is lolz). It happened to be the pro baseball player’s bday so we teamed up and had a double bday fiesta!

Sunday Aug 17th

• Life was great until 4am when my body couldn’t go anymore. Forcing my body to keep taking steps to the train station, I spent the rest of the day crashing out and transferring trains starting at 5:51am.
• Noon. Fukuoka. Ramen. Food was calling my name and Fukuoka is famous for it’s Ramen. Was directed to a Ramen ‘dome.’ I just wanted to sit down and eat but there were lines EVERYWHERE and out the doors. Since almost all the Ramen were meat options, I just got in the shortest line and said “vegetarian.” They sat me down quick and I devoured the best ramen I’ve ever eaten. Yummy.
• 1:30pm Ramen dome was in the mall, so the last hours were spent in the mall. Got carried away trying on shoes and then looked at the clock. Time to go!
• Walked in circles around the mall and finally was directed to a bus that would get me to the int’l ferry station. The traffic came to a dead stop and I coulda walked faster at many points, but the driver assured me the bus went to the Station. So I just tried to keep my cool as I started sweating when I looked at the clock: 3:15pm. 45 mins until my ferry went underway back to Korea!
• 3:35pm. The bus driver made an announcement and everyone cleared out. THE BUS STOPPED AT THE TRAIN STATION! I was frustrated and gave the driver my two cents, didn’t pay him, and ran towards information. We must have genuinely been Lost In Translation. 5 minutes were wasted asking a non-English speaking information guide how to get to the int’l ferry terminal. By this point I was pissed and tearing up with frustration, exhaustion, and simply wanting to go to my home, lie in my bed and SLEEP. Missing work was also a stessor, but not as important as the basics: SLEEP.
• 240pm I found the English speaking information guide I’d spoke to earlier. She told me where the taxi’s were and I went running. I hopped into the first taxi in line and pointed to “INT’L FERRY TERMINAL” written in Kanji. Additionally, i showed him my ticket that read “4:00PM.” What a great Taxi driver! He took off like any race car from the Fast and the Furious and cut through the traffic and took a wide Right turn, all the while stepping on the gas. He understood we were racing against the clock. 5-7 minutes and 13 dollars later, I was in front of the Int’l Ferry Terminal.
• Running into the terminal, the company was already eyeballing me because it was apparent I was trying to make the last boat of the night to Busan. Threw down my ticket and 3,000 Yen. The departure fee was 2,500 Yen. They pointed me to some kind of change machine so I ran over there and stuck in the 1,000 bill. Pushed 500Yen, thinking two 500Yen coins would come out. Nope! Some ticket thing came out and I almost burst into tears from the build-up over the last 1.5 hours. The noise I made was enough to send the worker running towards me to help a distressed passenger out. Once she made everything good, she handed me my ticket and I went running upstairs, through immigration, past the duty-free shop that I unfortunately had no time to stop and purchase gifts, followed the stragglers (and passed-up those slow pokes!), and plopped in my seat on the ferry. Literally in 5 minutes or less, the boat was in motion. Thank GOD for that Fast and the Furious taxi driver or I’da been stranded in Fukuoka and would have some explaining to do to my bosses. Thank God that was all avoided.
• 9pm. HOME SAFE! In my mind, I wanted to throw down my backpack and hit the sack. However, I’m too much of a neat freak and too organized for that, so had to unpack, start the laundry, catch up on e-mails with one eye open. See how important y’all are to me!?!!!! VERY IMPORTANT!
• Past midnight: in bed for 6 hours sleep before teaching classes 9AM bright and early Monday.