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Monday in Tokyo, Traveling home
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Mar. 21st, 2006 @ 05:27 pm
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We got a semi-late start, but made sure to hit up Denny's across the street from our hotel for a real breakfast. Orange juice w/ pulp = blech. The only well-known places we had left to visit were Shibuya and Shinjuku, but Shinjuku was the political center, and didn't sound like it had anything too special, so Shibuya it was! Took the subway over, and headed to the shopping area. What else is there to do in Tokyo but shop!? :D Some interesting department stores, found goodies to bring home, stopped at some point to get crepes (I went for a warm strawberries and cream, Lorraine for bananas and cream). Yum city. We also had stopped in a UFO catcher arcade, and we hit it decently big on a couple stuffy machines. I snagged a couple CDs in an HMV (yeah, lots of American stores there). Headed back to the hotel in the early afternoon, and we took a sorta wrong turn out of the subway-- as luck would have it, it was a good thing cause we managed to pass a shabu shabu restaurant! They were closed as it was between lunch and dinner, but a man there handed us a flyer and we knew we were going to go back. Lorraine wanted to go into a couple upscale stores in the Ginza area that we hadn't had a chance to go into before, and spent far more money than I ever would on a hangbag and a ring ^^;;;; But hey, it was her money and she's the shopper, not me :D Putzed in the hotel room before going back to that shabu shabu place for dinner right around 5pm. Yeah, we were the only people in the place the entire time we were there. We got something more beef-ish for Lorraine, and more beef + seafood combo for me. Burnt my tongue something royal on the first dumpling I ate, but everything was pretty yummy. We had 3 large Kirin beers between the two of us, and they gave us lychee ice cream and fresh lychee fruits, yum! Good times, good times :D
Lorraine took a nice nap after we got back to the hotel, and then we took the time to pack our luggage, taking pics of our "haul" of goodies and souvenirs. Good thing too, cause we woke up a little bit late on Tuesday morning. Not that we had to check out early at all, but we wouldn't have had time to pack. We did have time to go to a nearby coffee shop and snag some breakfast sandwiches, then checked out maybe 11:30am and headed to the train station. Our bullet train left Tokyo around 1pm, and we changed trains in Osaka before getting to the airport around 5pm. Lorraine's ornamental samurai sword kinda set off the metal detectors all our baggage went through before getting to the ticket counters (hee!) and she had her luggage checked while I checked us into the flight. Plane left at 7pm, and of course there was a crying baby next to us. We opted to watch a couple of our own movies rather than those the flight offered, and enjoyed some beer and (for me) screwdrivers as we watched and ate dinner. One of the stewardesses threw us another round of drinks for no reason; we just shrugged and had at it ^^ We tried to get some sleep, but the baby kept us all awake. Flight took about 12 hours, rather than the 16~ on the way over. We were supposed to have a 3 hour layover in Chicago, but of course the flight was delayed an hour, so we grabbed a real meal at the Chili's restaurant inside the airport. Flight to Cleveland took about an hour. I literally collapsed on my father when I saw him at baggage claim, to enphasize my fatigue after having been awake for like, 27 hours at that point, I think it was maybe 10pm EST. Stayed up for another 3 hours chatting with family and friends online, so I think it was maybe a 30 hour day for me. So glad I made sure to take the following day off of work, cause I slept for 16 hours.
Overall a fantastic trip. Was my first time taking a trip unchaperoned, and the longest vacation where I didn't just stay at home. I'm sure I'd love to go back someday, but I'll be honest, it's be nice to go with someone else who speaks Japanese ^^; Would be fun to stay at a traditional inn or brave it at a hot spring, hee!
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Back Stateside
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Mar. 15th, 2006 @ 12:32 am
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Back home in Ohio. I have to type up my Monday report, as well as how freaking long of a traveling day this was. But first, I crash for a really long time. G'night! |
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Sunday in Tokyo
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Mar. 12th, 2006 @ 06:07 pm
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Sunday in Tokyo
We got up early enough to get out the door and down the block or so to the famous Kabukiza. I had the feeling we were headed in the right direction when I noticed all the (older) women dressed in true kimono. I'd actually taken pics of Kabukiza the day before, not realizing that it was THE place to go watch a Kabuki play. The house has two different performances every day, and each play is made up of maybe 3 different acts. You could either watch a whole performance, or pay for just one act and sit up in the nosebleeds. We went for the first act at 11am, and rented earpieces to listen to a recording explain what was going on in English. Our seats were up on the 4th floor, two long rows in the nosebleeds (but we got middle of the 2nd row). The act was nothing too exciting, but it was a quick half hour of stylized "fighting" and whatnot. You got the point without dragging it out too much.
After that, we'd read that Sunday was the day to go to Harajuku, so there we went. And... so did everyone else. Harajuku, it seemed, was supposed to be the place where young people get all dressed up in odd colors & patterns, and gothic baby doll getups. Honestly, the books and things make it up to be far more interesting than the place really was. There was only one bridge where the young people were hanging about, and there were no outfits that were anything I haven't already seen at anime conventions. Of course, there were a ton of foreigners there, ladies in their 50s snapping pictures like it was the craziest thing they'd ever seen. Meh, I didn't even bother taking any pictures, it was bleh. Some guy on top of a van shouting through a loud speaker, probably something religion-based. Grabbed lunch at an italian buffet (for some reason it's called "baikingu" in Japanese) and did some mall tralling, and then headed back to the hotel to drop things off. I had gotten a headache from Harajuku, so I took a half hour nap while Lorraine putzed on the computer.
Cleaned up, then headed to Roppongi. This is supposed to be the place for clubs and also lots of foreigners. We did some shopping, mostly book stores since I finally checked out what manga I needed to look for, and went to a shopping mall/high rise building area called Roppongi Hills. I'm sure it's ridiculously expensive to live there, but it did provide us with the view we needed of the famous Tokyo Tower, cause we didn't know which way to go to get there! We wanted to go there for more touristy generic gifts for people. Took us a while, but we managed to walk to Tokyo Tower (honestly, after the hour long walk in Kyoto from the Imperial Palace to the Heian Shrine, no length of walk phases us). Think we passed some kinda tv taping of some sort, was cool. Tokyo Tower looks quite like the Eifel Tower in Paris, but might actually be a bit taller, at 333 meters. There were some souvenir shops inside the base of the tower, so we quickly went through there. There was a bubble tea counter in the food court, so I totally had to have some. We bought tickets to go up to the main observatory deck, and dang, nice night view. There were signs pointing to the different cardinal directions, as well as pointing towards the different sub-sections of Tokyo, like Ginza and Ueno and Mt Fuji. We were both very glad we could add something to the end of our day like the Tower, rather than endless shopping.
Walked back to the main drags of Roppongi, and yeah there were a lot of bars and stuff, but Lorraine and I could have sworn we saw a board for a "shabu shabu" restaurant, but just could NOT find it again. We looked around for a long time, I was getting overloaded trying to read everything, and eventually had to settle for going to the one okonomiyaki restaurant that I *could* find. A comfy little place, the waitress lady was nice and helpful. I went bonkers on getting the food I wanted, cause it was getting late and I was hungry, so miso (with clams?) and tsukemono (different kinds of pickles) for me, and Lorraine and I shared a beef okonomiyaki. There's a heated griddle in the table, and you grease it up, and just dump this bowl of stuff on the griddle-- the bowl had cabbage, an egg, beef, maybe some other veggies, i don't really know. But you just let it cook, and then start eating. There is a sauce and some spices on the table to add to it, which really did make the okonomiyaki taste better. Lorraine had gotten a bottle of Sapporo beer with her dinner, but afterwards I joined her with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice, while she ate some vanilla ice cream-- they don't have green tea ice cream here like we have back home. The stuff here is called "matcha" and has a different kind of flavor, which Lorraine has found she does NOT like, hee. So we sat and drank for a while, just chatted up. We're such silly drunks, we only get a little buzzed and then we just exaggerate how drunk we are. Yay alcohol, it put us in a good mood.
Stopped at the local convenient store again on the way back, but I think we're going to have to hit up Denny's in the morning. The only main areas of Tokyo we have left to hit up are Shinjuku and Shibuya, which we'll do tomorrow. I am starting to get homesick in the sense that this is all different and new but I'm tired of being overwhelmed by the language and the sights and things.
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Friday night & Saturday
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Mar. 12th, 2006 @ 06:05 pm
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Friday in Tokyo
Got into Tokyo right around rush hour, and the only real map I had was totally in English, but the taxi driver we had spoke enough English. Not as posh as the Brighton back in Kyoto, but as Lorraine said, "space is at a premium here." We are on a main street. So we unpacked, and headed out for dinner and shopping/tralling. Lorraine's stomach was upset, so rather than subjecting it to foreign flavors, we found an italian eatery real quick. Lorraine got parmesan risotto (they made it in front of us in this freaking huge wheel of parmesan) and I got fettucini carbonara. Just walked around and shopped.
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Saturday in Tokyo
More expensive breakfasts at our hotel, so we crossed the street to a Denny's! Yay eggs and corned beef hash and salad and toast.
Decided we wanted to go up north to the Ueno Park area. Thankfully the weather cleared wonderfully, and it was sunny and fantastic for strolling. A lot of people about, but it was nice. There was a shrine in the big lake there, which we checked out, and then we headed to the Tokyo National Museum, which is supposed to have some 80,000 artifacts, only a portion of which could ever be displayed at any one time. First we checked out the Asian Gallery building, which I fell in love with. I had taken Asian Art back in college, and this building was full of Chinese, Korean, Indian, Iranian, Egyptian, Turkish, TONS of different stuff, a lot of which I'd studied, and I was going crazy with fascination. Took tons of pictures, to the point where I had to delete older trip pics off my memory card. The main gallery, oddly enough, didn't hold too much interest for me. I don't know why, but ancient Japanese stuff isn't all that impressive to me. It either looks like it was made by someone who didn't know what he was doing, or it looks like a bad imitation of something Chinese. The ningyo dolls, courtesan robes and theater garb did interest me, though. Love seeing how women had to wear like, 6 or 10 layers of kimono, cool yet blarg.
Caught a late lunch at the Ueno Hard Rock Cafe-- nice big cobb salad. After that, we headed to Akihabara and the supposed "Den Den Town area". Now, okay, we knew Akihabara was the kinda.. computer and electronic goods area, but oh my god. My brain just about exploded-- let me explain. With these popular shopping areas, there's always lots of lights and neon signs and large tv screens for advertising. But there's a subtle cohesion to it all. The sounds you hear are the natural sounds of people walking about shopping. Akihabara throws that cohesion to the ground, stomps on it, and starts flashing lights and shouting through a loud speaker, calling forth its minions of nerdly boys searching for that gadget or video game that must be bought before returning to their lonely bedrooms. A lot of the side streets were places that the cars wouldn't go, so it was like the shopping arcades, with people walking everywhere. The stores' shelves were all spaced too close together, and everyone trying to fight each other to find what they're looking for... YARG. Lorraine was on a mission to find an old Playstation 1 game her father was interested in, so we went from store to store asking if they had any PS1 games in stock, and a couple did but not the one we wanted. I pleeeaded for us to leave, and we escaped the insanity and came back to the hotel. Oh, we stopped at the local convenient store for snacks (we'd found another Mister Donut out in Akihabara) and then watched "Mansfield Park" on my lappie.
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On route to Tokyo
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Mar. 12th, 2006 @ 06:02 pm
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Checked out of our Kyoto hotel with leisure, had a nice chat with our taxi driver on the way to Kyoto Eki. Had some confusion when trying to exhcange our vouchers for rail passes, but eventually figured it out. Managed to get a 2pm shinkansen bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo, and also schedule our bullet train from Tokyo to the Kansai Airport for Tuesday. 4 days seems like a short time, but Lorraine and I have packed a lot into our trip already, I think we'll be able to accomplish a lot in that time. Got a light lunch at a McDonald's, then parked it in a waiting area for an hour or so. Our tickets were a tiny bit confusing, but there were signs for the shinkansen platforms, and we made it up to ours just fine. We paid more to make sure we had first class seats on the trains, reserved seats and non-smoking. Our seats lean back, there's a light overhead, even a little foot rest; two seats on either side of the aisle, where I think on the ordinary cars there are three, so it's very comfortable. A woman came by and gave us hand wipes, and a man came by to check our tickets. We're making stops every 20 minutes or so to let on/off other passengers.
As we go through the "countryside", you see that it's not really like you'd expect to see back home. The are an unimaginable amount of residential houses out here, I'm sure a good number of single family homes, but they have only the tiniest plot for a "garden", and any large expanse of green is some sort of small farm. I may have seen one park, but that's about it. As we left Kyoto, we did go through a few tunnels to get through the small mountains that surround the city, and like most of the places there must be something about building up the mountainside that people just don't like. It's like they will raise buildings only as far as the ground stays flat, then no one finds it worth their time to make their way up.
We've come up to Nagoya now, and I wish it was worth the effort to take pictures out my window. The weather is overcast and gray, and will probably stay like this for the next few days, but I think things will clear up enough by Sunday sometime. I'm off to go watch either some Hana Yori Dango LA, or perhaps an episode of Mushishi.
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Kyoto - Wednesday night, Thursday morning/afternoon:
Recap of morning -- lots of walking around Imperial Palace, Heian Shrine, Kyoto Handicraft Center.
We came back to the hotel to drop off our things, and freshen up. We headed towards a shotengai on our map, and had a taxi get us there. Most taxis start at a flat fare around 600 yen, and though we'd used a few that day, fares never went above 1000 yen. This shotengai was much like the one in Osaka, stores and small restaurants and UFO catchers. I'd been holding off of the gee-gaws, for fear of overloading my suitcase. We tralled, looking in a few stores, trying to pick out a decent restaurant. Lorraine tried my thin patience with her picky food habits (no seafood, won't even do cucumber sushi rolls because she's found she doesn't like the nori seaweed to the point of gagging (something we thankfully discovered back home), no condiments at all on burgers) when she said something like "well, you can get the sushi, I'll just get a bowl of rice"-- yaaarg! We eventually passed a store called Mister Donut which we went into to get breakfast for the next day-- remember, $25 hotel breakfast?-- and it turns out they sold cheap noodles there, so we thought oh fine, might as well. Plain soba noodles for Lorraine, I just picked some kinda noodles which, ylech, had black beans in them. But we'd gotten meal sets, so we had gyoza pork dumplings and shumai shrimp dumplings along with "melon soda"... which is like cream soda only a crazy bright green color. Didn't do much after we ate, just came home via the subway (I told Lorraine that taking taxis everywhere may be convenient, but it feels like we're cheating somehow, aside from being twice as expensive as public transportation), and just chilled for the evening.
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Thursday morning, we got up and made our game plan. We'd read that you can buy a one-day bus pass for 500 yen, and takes you all over the city. As the sites we wanted to hit were kinda on opposite ends of the city, and would require changing buses, we figured we'd do the pass rather than paying straight 220 flat fares. Just NE of our hotel is a fairly main intersection, so we were able to catch a bus there and headed for Ryoanji. The place isn't too big, but is famous for its rock garden, with raked white gravel and varied larger stones, and is considered to be the best place for Zen Buddhism meditation. Because the wall surrounding the garden was under rennovation, they'd opened up one of the gardens that normally wasn't made public. The place was nicely serene and had various kinds of trees, providing enough green though it's still March and there's virtually no flowers anyplace. It's set up in the side of the small mountains surrounding the city, so there were steps up and down the few gradens and large pond.
Hopped back on a bus to go to the nearby Kinkakuji, more commonly known to foreigners as the Golden Palace. Built by the first shogun, me thinks, it was (of course) burned down but they rebuilt it, and its covered in gold leaf. There's a fantastic lake that it sits on, so yay pictures. There was a path back into the mountains and more pretty scenery. It's a pretty popular site, lots of tourists. Lorraine got a chocolate ice cream bar out of a vending machine, and I got some green tea-flavored dango from one of the small stands. Lorraine had an embarassing case of Chocolate Mouth, and hid next to some vending machines til she finished and I could hand her a tissue. The dango were mochi rice cake balls on skewers, and though I'd had mochi before, Lorraine wasn't prepared for just how gummy the consistancy was, gagged and had to spit it out. *Sigh*
Because Lorraine's camera's battery died at Ryoanji, we opted to stop back at our hotel to recharge it rather than go to Nijo Castle, which seemed more of the same palace stuff we'd been seeing at the Imperial Palace or Osaka Castle. We did stop at Mos Burger for lunch, which is this fast food chain I had heard about before coming over. My Mos Cheeseburger had something on it that was a cross between chili and sloppy joe mix, and although we'd asked for nothing on Lorraine's cheeseburger (remember, she's picky?) she did get mustard on it. Oh, she tried to scrape it off.. that didn't work, but she finished her burger anyways. We had a big ol' discussion about how picky she is. Back at the hotel, I typed up some reports on my lappie while Lorraine laid down for a slight nap.
Back on the street, we took the subway down a few stops to Shijo Avenue (which is like 4th Avenue, but only it's several blocks inbetween 3rd and 4th and 5th.. the numbers start at the Imperial Palace and go up as you go farther away.. the more important courtiers lived closer to the Palace, of course. Nowadays, the downtown area is more around 4th and 5th, take that you thousand year old emperors! Fight the man.. that was!!) We went topside to catch a bus out east, past Gion (which looked like nothing as we passed through it, maybe we just didn't see enough of the side streets) and then a little south to a famous temple called Kiyomuzu-dera. Built in 778 and came under the protection of the Emperor Kanmu, this place was incredible-- I mean, you had to climb this inclined street lined with residences that gave way to small shops and a few restaurants, but eventually you reach the temple itself, with its tall steps and torii gate. I kinda finally got into the spirit of these temples, and went through the motions of washing my hands with the little troughs and long-handled spoons, and threw money into the coffers and clapped twice and bowed to the Buddha statues, thanking them for letting us have the chance to come to a place like this. As it was up in the mountains, the view over the city was hazy with impending rain, but far reaching. The mountainside had to have been a wonderful place to get away from the hussle of the city, even back in the court's heyday. On the side of the mountain is a large sakura cherry tree grove, which I'm sure would look awesome in the spring, and remind monks of old of the impermanence of life, one of those themes that still pervades through this society. As the temple was supposed to close at 6pm, the shops were starting to close down when we left around 5:30pm.
We took a bus back towards Shijo, for when we came through before, we were hitting rush hour and could tell this street was bussling with streets. We got off and walked for a while, but nothing really caught our fancy and we just finally started looking for dinner. There was an okonomiyaki place back at Kiyomizu, which I wouldn't have minded getting, but alas, nothing quite so unusual on Shijo. More plastic models in the windows, I spotted something across the street that looked newer and cleaner, and I made us go over there. Yahoo, tonkatsu for Lorraine and some kinda "irodori set" for me that was like miso and rice and then several boxes of small things, like fried tofu and fried chicken, seaweed salad and dried fried tofu strings, a piece of some kind of grilled fish, some small veggies that didn't look too good, and also some kinda coleslaw of carrots and daikon and maybe seaweed and/or mushrooms but also turned out to have soft-boiled peanuts-- thankfully, I only bit into one and spat it right out and then drowned it with my hot tea and other food. I was sooo a happy camper to have something more Japanese in flavor. The restaurant was one where you purchase a ticket at a vending machine, and then hand the ticket to a waitress and they bring stuff over to you. Fast food, I'm sure, but to me it was just what I'd been wanting for a while as we'd been having more Western things to eat.
Found a bakery on the street, got some snacks for the night and for Friday morning-- I'm writing this on Thursday evening, and tomorrow Lorraine and I check out of this posh hotel and head for Tokyo. My thoughts on the hotel: it's certainly the swankiest and most expensive place I've ever stayed at. The room size is large, even by American standards, me thinks, as it's more of a suite with a couch and minibar. I think there're other foreigners that stay here, but there's plenty of Japanese people who are staying. I feel horribly underdressed and unfashionable when I walk through this place, because the staff is prim and proper, and all the Japanese people are nicely dressed up as well. Only on us "Gaikokujin" foreigners will you find blue jeans. The beds aren't quite the best.. they do give you three different kinds of pillows (which is nice) but the mattress is stiff and the comforter is far too warm, and no bed sheet! The location is a little out of the way... it's certainly quiet, and Lorraine and I weren't liking that at first, as there's no real restaurants or anything nearby, but if you're looking for more restful stop on a trip to this country, once could do far worse.
I'm looking forward to Tokyo, though I am anxious about getting there properly. We have vouchers for the shinkansen bullet train, but we have to turn them in someplace. I don't know if we'll be able to check our luggage at all, or if we'll have to lug it ourselves, which is why I haven't been loading up on souvenirs like Lorraine has XD The train stations make me nervous, what with so many people and how fast paced they are, oh and not to mention IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. Yeah, I can claim taking "three and a half years" of the language, but it's not fluency, and there's a lot of writing in this country. It's a lot to process, between all the talking and all the writing and all the culture and us just trying to get around in a new place. My mumbling has been driving Lorraine crazy, cause she doesn't know if I'm saying anything important, but really talking it aloud is the only way my poor brain can handle it all.
Gonna go read and relax, we're going to take it easy in the morning, check out isn't until noon, but since we have to wrestle the train station and then actual travel via train to Tokyo, the earlier the start the better. We're thinking 10am.
Heian Shrine (200k)
Tying a bad mikugi fortune (326k)
Ryoanji rock garden (241k)
Kinkakuji (228k)
Kiyomizu Temple (260k)
Mar. 11th, 2006 @ 06:57 pm
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| » Osaka report, Part 2 of 2 |
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The following took place on Monday evening, when we were still in Osaka. Follows this post:
So because Summer had to work later in Namba, we strolled over there to look for lunch and fun times. Namba is full of these shotengai, or "shopping arcades"-- pedestrian-only streets with high ceilings (to keep out the rain) and tons of shops, dinky restaurants, gaming arcades and the like. We hit up a couple places with UFO catchers, finding Stitch from Lilo & Stitch only he's dressed like this minor celebrity here named "Hard Gay," who's this guy dressed as a gay biker and gyrates and people laugh, cause it's something that would never be allowed in America. There's a ton of merchandise here from America, like Nightmare Before Christmas, Little Mermaid, lots of other Disney characters. I think it's the Nightmare Before Christmas stuff that gets me. Oh, and there's a TON of American music that gets played in stores; I suppose it's some attempt to be hip and cool, but seriously, over half the music I hear is not in Japanese. We also went for the big taiko drum game, which is like DDR only with big drums and sticks. We also did a purikura photo sticker machine, which was silly fun posing and decorating our tiny pics ^^
We found lunch in one of the restaurants in the shotengai, which the books tell you you can see what they offer by these little plastic models in the windows, and holy crap they were right. Not that the models look appetizing, but yeah, you can see if a place sells noodles or sushi or a more wide selection of kinda Bob Evans quality "home favorites." Lorraine's not quite too adventurous (which, writing this on Thursday I can tell you is aaaall too true), so we went for the more varied menu, and Lorraine got some kinda spaghetti, and I went for a variety set with miso soup and fried shrimp and chicken and hamburger patty with sauce and rice.
Had my first experience with a squat toilet at our restaurant. The doors go all the way to the ground, for privacy's sake, and I think there was even a button on the wall if you wanted a computer to emit a loud flushing sounds to mask whatever noise you might be making. Incredibly not comfortable, and not very sanitary as the floor shows that women can't aim, either, you just pull your pants down, squat, and have at it. There's toilet paper and what not, but I can't understand why places don't switch over to Western toilets.. maybe the fixtures cost too much, but I hate the thought of any poor older women having to kill their backs using it.
We tralled around some more, hit up some books stores, I tried takoyaki (balls of batter with a piece of octopus in the center, cooked just slightly enough to hold it all together, sauce and stuff on top), Lorraine made us go in a Wendy's (yup, tastes the same), and we also went to a Baskin Robbins! We finally had to part ways with Summer. Alas, I could have spent a ton more time hanging out with her. Do karaoke, go get drunks, the like ^^ So Lorraine and I tried heading back to our hotel, first following some underground shotengai, then up onto the street. Yeah, well, our maps sucked, and Japan does NOT mark their streets save the largest of them, so I didn't know exactly where we were. Oh, I had a general idea, knew we were heading in the correct cardinal direction, but turns out we stopped at this convenience store that was all of a block or two over from our hotel, and then kept heading north. And it was raining. Small side streets, not really any sidewalks. I was looking for landmarks that weren't manifesting themselves, or should have recognized the ones we had, and took us twice as far as we had to go before Lorraine called quits the trek north. We headed west towards Midosuji, a main street, and then headed back south.
Then, grumpy and wet as we were, like heaven opening up before us, Lorraine spotted the Osaka Hard Rock Cafe. Now, she'd mentioned that she'd wanted to go to one in Japan, but we thought we'd just find the one in Tokyo since we weren't staying in Osaka long. Yeah, we went in. Best English we'd heard so far, both our hostess and our server. Margaritas and real cheeseburgers with real American cheese for both of us. Oh sure, the cheeseburgers cost like 1500 yen, and it was Aussie beef not American, but oh it was good. I must not have had enough calories during my day, cause that margarita hit me enough. We headed back to our hotel, and had no problems getting there. Totally crashed when we got in.
Osaka Castle (219k)
A shopping arcade (271k)
Hard Gay Stitch (300k~)
Mar. 11th, 2006 @ 06:29 pm
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Woot, we've arrived in Tokyo. Gonna grab some dinner, hopefully, then I'll be posting a few reports I've been working on. Yay, free internet in our room! :D
Mar. 10th, 2006 @ 04:25 am
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| » More in Kyoto |
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Oi, walking day. So, last night we just found some random restaurant on the main Karasuma Street that runs north-south through Kyoto. We're in some rather quiet part of town, a few blocks off Karasuma St., so it's kinda a change from the centrality we had in Osaka. We ate food, came back, and watched Sense & Sensibility on my laptop's DVD player.
Got up today for a late start. There's no free breakfast at this place, and they want to charge like $25 for a coffee, couple eggs, toast and ham set. Nu uh, not gonna happen. So we found some dinky coffee shop, got a drink and some cinnamon toast, then headed across Karasuma St to the Imperial Palace. It hasn't been lived in since 1868 when the capitol got moved to Edo (current day Tokyo). We walked around for a bit, then found out how to get tickets for inside. Turned out there were English tours twice a day, and we'd missed the 10 o'clock one, but got reservations for the 2PM one. Then, we started walking towards the Heian Shrine. And we walked. and walked. and oooh walked some more. No, Kyoto is not for walking. About an hour later we finally got to the shrine, which was pretty darn cool. Then, we just hopped in a taxi to get back for our tour of the palace. Our tour guide chick spoke English, but her accent was funky. We couldn't actually go into any of the buildings on the site, but we got to go around a lot of them, and peek inside the opened walls (lots of sliding doors rather than permament walls).
Hopped in a taxi to go back towards the Heian Shrine, for there was this Handicrafts Center that Lorraine wanted to go to, for gift shopping and other stuff. Whatev, I didn't get anything myself, for I did not want to overload my already stuffed suitcase. We're back here at the hotel, freshened up and are probably going to head out towards a shopping arcade for dinner and such. I don't want to stay out too late, I'm all sorts of pooped out from walking so much today.
Mar. 8th, 2006 @ 05:47 pm
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| » Here in Kyoto |
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Well, we stayed a few hours past checkout in Osaka (which the hotel was cool with, just cost an extra $10/hr), and tralled the streets a little bit in Shinsaibashi and America-Mura. Around 1pm we checked out, caught a taxi to the Osaka Train Station (only $11 this time, heh) and somehow managed to get on a local train to Kyoto. The train tix only cost $5 each, but I wouldn`t call the station friendly to those with big ass suitcases. Train ride took a half hour, we found a taxi right away, the guy knew right where our hotel was.
Posh.
This place is posh, yo. Not really any other word for it. Our room is huge, we managed to upgrade to two beds rather than the one, we even have a little sitting area with a couch, there`s a minibar and everything. This place is costing like $200/night, so I suppose it better be freaking awesome. Lorraine is pleased. We were all tuckered out, so we took a nap for like... 3 hours, hee. If there`s internet hookup in the rooms, I haven`t figured it out, I`ll have to ask the front desk. There is, however, an Internet Room in the lobby. So, possibly no AIM for anyone til Tokyo, boo.
We`re going to head out for some dinner, hopefully. There`s a few restaurants in the hotel, but the prices are going to be way too high. My nap`s made me not feel too adventurous, maybe better in the morning.
Mar. 7th, 2006 @ 07:01 pm
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| » A full day in Osaka! Part 1 |
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So we both passed out early on Sunday night (well, Sunday over here) and got in a good eight hours or so of sleep. The bed's not bad, the pillow feels like it's filled with soft beans rather than cotton, but it's okay. Since we're sharing the bed, though, I can't toss and turn like if I were sleeping in my own bed, so my back was hurting by about 6am. Putzed around on the internet (aah, comforts of home) til Lorraine got up more around 7:45~ We cleaned up and went downstairs for our free continental breakfast: coffee, orange juice, milk, boxes of corn flakes and cocoa crispies, little containers of salad and fruit pieces, onigiri rice balls, hard boiled eggs, small rolls and croissants with buuter and jam, little things of yogurt. Never found hotel breakfasts filling, but it tided me over.
Left about 9:15~ to head towards Osakajo, which is this historical old Japanese castle (I'm sure many times rebuilt) that's just in the middle of Japan's quest for modernity. We had to walk for several blocks to get to our subway station, and I more than Lorraine was hesitant about buying tickets at this machine, and then getting through the gates (I'm fine now that I know how it works! Just didn't want the be the "baka gaijin" or "stupid foreigner"). Once you get past the gates, the subways are well labeled with English as well as Japanese, color coded, arrows pointing the direction the trains were going and what stations were along their paths. Announcements of approaching stations are given in both Japanese and English, so there was no confusion. Our fare was 200 yen each for our ride to Osakajo. Took us maybe 45~ minutes to walk and ride our way there.
We had to walk up a big winding path to get to the main tower of Osakajo, past smaller houses and a Bhuddist monk holding beads and chanting. The nerd in me wanted to take a picture, but I didn't think it would be right. There's a flat open area just at the base of the castle, with souvenir shops and concession stands with noodles and takoyaki (I guess Osaka is Takoyaki Central) and even hamburgers. We bought our 600 yen admission tickets through a vending machine (of course) next to a booth where someone ripped the stub off for us. We climbed the steps up to the main tower, and were quickly rushed into a waiting elevator; they take you up to the 5th floor, then suggest you go up to the 8th floor observation deck, and work your way down. Oookay! 5th floor was dedicated to this big folding screen that depicted a 3 day war and a lot of warriors that I didn't know and won't remember. On up to the observation deck, you can walk out and get a fantastic view of everything, just buildings going off to the horizon. As we went down floors, we got to see artifacts like samurai armor and swords and halbeards, and it was fascinating to see the level of detail-- oh, have I mentioned how freaking detail-oriented everything is? everything must be perfectly in order, let's spend 3 hours making sure the plastic knives in this basket are perfectly parallel-- the level of detail on the sword hilts and arrow heads.. I kid you not, there was a crab-shaped design in one of the sword hilts on display. Lovely flower designs, really cool.
So we headed back towards Shinsaibashi, took the subway again, came up to the main street of Mido-suji and walked towards America-Mura (or, America City) where there's a ton of upscale American and European clothing stores, Louis Vitton and Coach and everything you'd want, then lots of smaller clothing stores on the smaller side streets where people were strolling and high school kids were wasting time still dressed in their high school uniforms. We found our way to this very small Triangle Park (actual trees!) to wait for Summer.
---Gonna hafta finish this later, gotta get ready for Tuesday breakfast and moving on to Kyoto.
Mar. 6th, 2006 @ 05:10 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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So I'm sitting in the TINIEST excuse of a hotel room EVAH. XD But it has free internet. I am mildly happy.
So my flight was out of Cleveland at 10:40am Saturday, we got to Chicago a little ahead of time, bonus. We were supposed to take off at maybe 12:12pm central time, but we had to taxi for a while. As it turned out, the plane was 85%~ booked when I purchased our tickets, so we couldn't get seats then, and had to wait til we checked in. Lo and behold, our seats weren't together. Thankfully, the guy next to Lorraine was sitting by himself, so he was kind enough to switch. It was one of those large planes with two aisles, 9 seats across. I was on the aisle, but not quite near a window. There were tv screens in the seats in front of us, showing a few different movies (Pride & Prejudice, Elizabethtown, Fever Pitch, Walk The Line, etc) and also a nice map of where the plane had flown so far, various statistics and such. They served us snack mix, then a lunch of carrot cake, fruit, salad with ham, then either chicken stir fry with rice, or salsbury steak with potatoes. Then a snack of kitsune ramen (ramen with deep fried tofu). Then a dinner of fruit, raspberry jam shortbread cookies, and either cheese ravioli in maranara sauce or some beef something. Not too bad.
Got through customs just fine, found our luggage okay. Called the hotel to ask if they had a shuttle service, alas no, so we just bit it and got a taxi. Sooo expensive, like 17000 yen, but we were so tired we didn't care. It was so much more convenient than taking trains and subways and finding our barely marked hotel amidst all of the chaos that got even our taxi driver lost. Yeah. And yeah, our hotel room is ridiculously small, there's like a double bed, a tiny desk, and a tiny bathroom. For another 17000 yen total for two nights. I'm so tired, I just want to sleep, I'll worry about the free breakfast in the morning. Right now it's a little before 8pm local time, but neither of us feel like exploring. We'll think about that tomorrow.
...Just got off the phone with Summer <3 yay, luvs ya chickie :D Gonna try meeting up with her for lunch, after checking out Osaka Castle in the morning.
Mar. 5th, 2006 @ 05:35 am
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| » Itte kimaaaasu!! |
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In a short while, I'll be off to the airport on my way to Japan! I hope to be able to update this LJ as permitting, or if you're close friends/family, I'll send out mass emails if I can. Otherwise, I'll be home on Tuesday March 14th! See y'all!
Summer! We're staying at the Comfort Inn in Shinsaibashi, in the America-mura someplace around here *_*. I hoooope we'll be there by 7:30pm~ish on Sunday, but who knows. The phone number for the hotel is 81 6 6258 3111! Pleeease call us, we'd love to do something! XD The room ought to be under my name, Breanne Siska.
Mar. 4th, 2006 @ 06:40 am
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| » Bre's Japan Trip! |
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I'm keeping this one page public, to let non-LJ users know about how my trip's going. Keep an eye here for when I actually go, as I'll try to update this as best I can.
Trip dates: Leave Saturday March 4, return Tuesday March 14.
As it now stands, we have airline tickets purchased and hotel reservations in all three cities where we're staying: Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo.
Rail pass voicers have been purchased.
Japanese yen have been purchased but waiting for delivery.
Still have some shopping to do, like purchase a digital camera.
Not really any set plan for what we'd like to do in each city.
Check back for more updates ^_^
(Last update: 2/24/06)
Jan. 31st, 2006 @ 04:49 pm
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| » Straws and camels' backs. |
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Yaaaaap, that about does it. My LiveJournal entries from here on out will be Friends Only. If you'd like to read them, leave a message here, or send me an IM/email, and I'll add ya. You should be able to sign up for Live Journal accounts now without needing a code generated by a current user.
Mar. 2nd, 2004 @ 11:23 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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To all interested parties: aside from a one hour-ish phone call from Lorraine, I slept for 18 hours - 3:15 - 7:15 when Lorraine called, 8:00pm - 9:30am. Well, I did wake up at various intervals, but I stayed in bed the whole time. Me thinks... I was tired :P Now I'm off to clean the apartment cause they're showing it off at 1pm.
Jan. 31st, 2004 @ 10:17 am
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| » Too silly not to share. |
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4096586/
"TAIPEI - Residents of Tainan learned a lesson in whale biology after the decomposing remains of a 60-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours.
"[...]the male specimen -- the largest whale ever recorded in Taiwan -- drew the attention of locals because of its large penis, measured at some five feet, the Taipei Times reported.
"More than 100 Tainan city residents, mostly men, have reportedly gone to see the corpse to 'experience' the size of its penis," the newspaper reported."
Jan. 30th, 2004 @ 12:41 am
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| » (No Subject) |
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Oh, I meant to add in my last post, I bought a 20oz bottle of CocaCola today, and as a promotion they were giving away free packets of a new "accessory" product from Coke: chocolate-flavored syrup to add to your drink, called "Flavor Rage". The nutritional information said it had zero calories, zero sugars/carbs, just 10mg of sodium from the sodium benzoate they use as a preservative. If you liked Vanilla Coke, then you'd probably like this "chocolate" version too. I don't know that I'd ever buy the packets on their own, but if they offered a Chocolate Coke in a canned form, I might be tempted to pick it up once in a blue moon.
Jan. 28th, 2004 @ 04:13 pm
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| » The "Bre Is Not Dead" Update... |
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... but I very well could be by the end of the week. Here's life so far:
-Wed. of last week: picked up Louis. Had Japanese food. Yum.
-Thurs: drove up to Cleveland to pick up Christine (and Miss Kitty!), drove back to Columbus, helped make incredibly yummy asian food to celebrate Chinese New Year
-Fri: Drove J.J. to airport in the snowy weather. Had Christi and Lance over for a repeat of aforementioned asian food. Drove them back to their hotel in even crappier weather. Scary!
-Sat: Went to Ohayocon downtown! Roads were MUCH better than previous night. Con seemed much larger, more people, more things to do, than last year. First headed to the Dealer's Room, to say hi to Lance & Christi and that FUNimation booth, then headed off to look around. Bought myself the next three Fruits Basket mangas, in Japanese of course. Bought Christine... some kinda keychain that's a kitty in a food bun, with it's head sticking out. I guess you'd have to see it. Watched some anime (Scryed, Witch Hunter Robin, Devilman [*snerk!*], and then Tamala 2010 [fukt up!]). Had lunch at the food court there, and just generally hung out. Apparently we missed out on seeing ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kou_chan while we were there; we could tell there was a DDR tournie going on, and even went into the Game Room for a little while, but we never saw him ;_; Towards the end of the evening, we checked in on the J-Rock group, "Blood", which was just overly dramatic and generally laughable. I really don't know how anyone can take them seriously-- probably the J-Rock fans are the same fangirls that are all into yaoi. Made pizza when we got home, watched a little anime here. Watched raw Sailor Moon Live Action #16-- You're such a jerkface, Chiba Mamoru! Just when I thought you and Usagi were starting to get along, you have to have a girl on your arm and totally blow off Usagi when you see her. Bad Mamoru, BAD!!
-Sun: pizza the night before, so sure, pizza when we wake up. Did some reading of my mangas, then did eventually get into my reading for class. Dad came and picked Christine up to take her home. No new Alias. Bastards.
-Mon: Took Louis to try out the new Winking Lizard up on the north side of Columbus, cause it was Wing Night. Bloodsuckers raised their prices from 25 cents to 30 cents, yarg! Still, tasted quite good. Quite messy, as it ought to be. $15 + tip for two drinks, some celery & blue cheese & ranch, and probably 30 wings between the two of us. Very sorry that kou_chan again couldn't meet up with us ;_;
-Tues: Took Louis to the airport, then went to class. Spent a couple hours after class at the Library reading half of The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, for my Women's Studies class. Came home, played some Gunbound with Jeff and Greg, but we were really lagged and those guys are newbs so the games weren't that much fun. Took a long nap from 6:30 til a little after midnight, got up for a while and putzed before doing a bit more reading for class, then got a little more sleep.
-Today: Bastard City of Columbus. Its new title. Care of me. Since the Bastard City of Columbus refuses to try salting anything other than their main roads. The sidewalks off-campus are completely covered with ice unless some individuals/property managers chipped the ice away and put salt down. Needless to say, the roads are icy except for two ruts from cars' wheels. I slipped and almost fell down once, slipped and actually did fall down once, and then tripped and almost fell down, all by the time I got to class this morning. My whole right side's sore, plus I have a big black & blue mark already forming on my hip.
Now that you're caught up (props to those who actually read all of the above), here's what I have in the works:
-I have a paper due pretty much once a week for the rest of the quarter, starting with one due on Friday. Unfortunately we just finished talking today about the literature that I'm going to be addressing in my paper. Hurrah for hastily-thrown-together papers. There's an optional rewrite for this paper due later in the quarter, and chances are that I'll be taking that opportunity.
-My pregnant Japanese professor is in the hospital for some reason, although none of us really know why. We're not sure how long she'll be, so my T.A. and some other T.A.s in the department are just going to wing it in her absence. Not like it's hard.. the lessons are totally planned out for the rest of the quarter, it's just new vocabulary and grammar patterns.
-I might have a roommate by the mid-February. This girl I've met several times, Najette (pronounced "nih-JHET"), has been looking to move out of her parents' home, and I've been talking with her since Monday night about her possibly moving in with me since I pretty much am living alone and have a spare room. It'd be some welcome companionshp and some welcome influx of money for this rather not-cheap apartment. She might be bringing a cat! Will keep y'all updated.
Jan. 28th, 2004 @ 03:17 pm
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