Back in Beppu

Back in Beppu, back on campus, 45 days after start.

Writing this blogpost took me longer than I expected. It was harder than I thought it would be too. The last week has featured exhaustion, emotional turbulence, strong impressions, stress, and then I caught a cold – which escalated when I finally had time to sit down to breathe. I guess I'm lucky I mostly get sick at times when it's most convenient (or least inconvenient)... I think I’ll be able to throw it off quite soon though, thanks to Shannon's cough syrup – it was a relief to realize I could breathe normally again this afternoon.

Since Kyoto, the Family and I had 2 half days and a night in Hiroshima & Miyajima. We stayed at a really nice Ryokan on Miyjima, which wonderful cedar tree bath. Shame I was the only one that actually used it. We had ordered the stay at this Ryokan to experience a traditional Japanese accommodation, but the only Japanese thing we did was eat... But the food was just as wonderful as the cedar bath. Oh, and we slept on futons in tatami rooms, but... I'm kind of used to futons by now, so that experience wasn’t that big a deal for me…

In our 2 half days (one half day on either side of our stay at the Ryokan) we split up and did our preferred activities. The first day I took Mom & M to what I think is the most important sight in Hiroshima; the A-bomb Dome and the Peace Memorial Museum. The 2^nd day we had planed to take a stroll around the nearby sights of Miyajima before we left, but that morning it was raining so hard that we decided against it. We headed directly for the station where we hung out at Starbucks until it was time to get our luggage and get onto the train.

Arriving in Beppu with my family was the most tiring part of my whole journey. I had mixed feelings about going home at all in the first place. I had a good time travelling, and would have liked Beppu to just another stop on the way to somewhere else, and at the same time it would be nice to be back with my friends again (and to study again, to actually look up and re-learn all the Japanese I’ve noted I lacked along the way). And then, upon arriving in Beppu I was "home", but not "home enough" to be allowed to relax. Add the general tiredness & impatience in the group and you get a good portion of emotional turbulence, but in the end we had a nice last day together in Beppu when I took them to the Jigoku Meguri (or in English "The Hells' Tour").

Accepting the fact that I was going home; it was really nice to come back to campus, to all the people that had begun to drift back into the dorms from where ever they have spent their break.

Since coming back to campus I've intensely socialized with a lot of people, got up at 5:45 to help Shan with her luggage down to the waiting car and to see her off, done my course reg., paid my bills and arranged my post re-delivered, eaten at a tabehoudai (all you can eat) with new and semi-new people, and spent a day and a half in bed after fixing everything important that had to be done. *phew*

Projects for the next week or so is to e-mail all the wonderful people I won't be seeing for a while (regardless of where I know them from), updating the blog (post pictures to previous posts etc.), start reading Peace & Conflict Studies and sort through misc. related administrative info (autumn sem. prep.), review kanji (spring sem. prep.), write my travel report to my sponsor foundation, etc. etc.

There are plenty of things to do, but foremost of them all is recuperation.

Kyoto in the Rain

I’m at our hotel room in Kyoto, airing feet and drying socks and trousers and jackets etc. I’m looking forward to posting a bigger update and post a direct blog-post for once, since there’s free internet connection on my own pc with the hotel room’s LAN cord. Yay! The only downside is that I’m exhausted after today’s excursions; we’ve been on a one-day bus tour of Kyoto, having about 40 minutes at each stop – most of them places where I could’ve spend hours on my own.

It’s nice to travel with my family, even though there are some challenges. Having spent a month practicing independency and travelling in my own pace it’s a big change to suddenly travel with 4 companions with different needs, wishes, desires, ways of thinking and different ways of communicating.

We arrived in Kyoto yesterday afternoon, but didn’t do much except relax at the hotel, and then go out to eat in the evening. Aunt and Uncle went out to dinner earlier, so Mom, M and I grabbed the opportunity to go to a sushi restaurant (A&U can’t/won’t eat raw food), and explored the local area around the hotel on our way home.

Today we had vouchers for a tour bus tour of Kyoto, like the one we had in Tokyo on Sunday. We’ve seen a lot, but we have no understanding of half of it or less because we had to rush through each stop and then from one stop to the next, rinse and repeat. I have no real sense of where the places where we went are, I’m not used to navigate from a bus seat, especially when I didn’t need to research ‘where from, where to, and where to stop’. Everything came sort of out of sequence since I just followed the flow of the tour bus program without knowing anything of it in advance. We saw Nijo Samurai Quarters (or something), the Golden Pavilion, the Imperial Palace (disappointing, so much stress & security for such a desolate place), had lunch at Kyoto Handy Crafts Centre, and then continued to Heian jingu, Sanjusangendou (with a 1001 kannon statues), and Kiyomizu-dera where Mom, M (my brother) and I dodged umbrellas while jogging through the temple area’s paths – three people, one umbrella and one very wet jacket.

It still ended up being a nice day, despite the rain. The rain (and following wet shoes, jackets, trousers etc.) wasn’t nice, but it definitely gave the tour a different character.

I won’t write that much more now, we’re soon heading out for dinner/supper, and then I’m updating some missing blogposts, and pictures will come later.

Tokyo Summary (backlogged)

I never got so far as to write about Nikko, and I guess I won’t be able to do so either, until I return to Beppu.

This is my 5^th day in Tokyo, and my first with time/energy to write. I had an entire evening to myself in Shiho’s apartment before my family came, but I was too tired to collect my thoughts long enough to even get out my pc.

Tokyo Day 1, March 12^th.

I arrived earlier than I bothered to tell the girls (Shiho, my hostess, and her friend Yuko – as not to worry them with my early arrival etc.), found my way to Shinjuku and then to Eifukuchou, stashed my luggage in a coin locker and returned to Shinjuku to meet Hans, a classmate from UiB. We walked around Shinjuku for a while, had lunch, took a train to Shimokitazawa where we walked around a little more, taking our time looking at all the fun little shops and all the people. After Shimokitazawa Hans took me to a big book store in Shinjuku to show me the international section before heading off, but we met another Norwegian there and ended up chatting. Hans finally had to go, but Mathias (the random Norwegian) and I took a coffee at Starbucks before I had to go.

I met up with Yuko at Eifukuchou station at 6 o’clock, and from there we walked to Shiho’s apartment, where I was to camp until my family came on the 15^th. I noticed Yuko was nervous of how to entertain me (and/or how to communicate with me) until Shiho came home from work (some 4 hours later), but communicating in (halting) Japanese helped a lot, and I managed to take the initiative on the entertainment bit by asking if she was interested in seeing some of my travel pictures. We ended up looking at pictures until 9:30 pm, and then realised that we should get out getting some food before everything closed. We were at the restaurant when Shiho joined us. It was a bit awkward at first, but it eased up easily enough. After eating Shiho convinced Yuko that she should camp for the night too since it was getting so late, so the three of us occupied the entire floor of Shiho’s 1 room, Japanese style apartment.

Tokyo Day 2, March 13^th.

After sleeping in, and socializing with Shiho before heading out at around noon, I walked around Shinjuku and Shibuya on my own, enjoying a window seat at Shibuya’s most famous Starbucks in the afternoon, eating a Banana Caramel Crepe on a street bench in the dusk-fall and then returned to Shiho’s apartment in the a little after dark.

Shiho gave me a spare key to her apartment since she had a night shift at work (she’s a nurse) and would be staying there for the night, so I was all alone. I had been given free access to everything in her fridge and cupboard, so I made my first home made meal in a month. I was a little hesitant at first, but it would be just as impolite to not take anything as to eat everything, so I went for the middle ground; make a meal of what I found, and replace the expensive stuff. (good food, sleepy, not managing to do anything of what I planned, etc.)

Tokyo Day 3, March 14^th

Planned to go to Kamakura, ended up staying in the apartment all day, until Shiho returned from work, we socialized until Yuko came over after work and then went out to dinner, out into the pouring rain.

Tokyo Day 4, March 15^th – Family arrival

Breakfast w/girls, train w/girls to Shinagawa, good timing at the hotel, Lunch w/fam, Shibuya w/fam, nighty-night.

Tokyo Day 4, March 16^th

Tokyo by tour bus tour, Asakusa in the evening, then returned to hotel.

Tokyo Day 5, March 17^th

Mom, M & me -day. Shinjuku; book store & shopping mall, lunch at One Half Café, then to Akihabara, hunt for a bookstore near Tokyo station, then return to hotel; joined Uncle & Aunt for a drink in the 39^th floor bar. Packing & stuff…

Closing in on Tokyo

Since I wrote last, from Sendai, I’ve travelled a day, from Sendai to Nikko, gone sightseeing in Nikko with C.G., and travelled yet another day. (I should write about Nikko too, sightseeing with C.G. for a day, and describing the YH I stayed at, but tonight Saitama was closer to the surface.)

I make a lot of plans, and I change some of them myself, others, like this one, was changed for me. I had planned to stay in Nikko two full days in order to get rested before entering the metropolis. Unfortunately for me, the youth hostel I stayed at in Nikko could only house me 2 nights, forcing me to change my plans. Since I had to find new accommodation I felt I could just as well move on, even though I’d love to stay another day or two in Nikko’s fresh air and peaceful scenery, though the town is a tad too touristy (wow, lots of T’s!).

Waking up this morning, I had no idea what so ever where I would be heading, so the only plan I had was to head down to the tourist information centre, buy some internet time and research what options I had. I wanted to go closer to Tokyo, but not all the way in to the city itself. Since I’m staying with Tommi’s sister its no good appearing a day too early, and if I went all the way into Tokyo I could just as well stay, find accommodation, and then it would have been much easier to book accommodation for all of the days until my family comes, but I can’t really cancel my arrangements with Tommi’s sister either, because both she and Tommi has gone through some trouble (fixed this whole arrangement) for me. And it would be *really* short notice if I cancelled now too.

So, having researched miscellaneous train schedules and other tourist information on the net, I decided to go to Saitama, even though my Lonely Planet says absolutely nothing about the ‘ken* at all. (*-ken = Prefecture)

(Another option I considered was to go out to the coast to Mito, in Ibaraki-ken, and see the famous garden and the plum trees (which are blooming at the moment) but I decided it would be too long to travel out there since I wouldn’t be able to spend any time there to go sightseeing since I have to be in Tokyo tomorrow; Mito was too far to travel to, just to return without seeing anything. Zannen desu ne…)

Not having a real map of Saitama, and only a slightly misleading ‘YH of Japan Map’ and no guiding from Lonely Planet I decided to go to Saitama City –which is on my YH-Japan map, but I realised after a while that Saitama City isn’t really a place, but rather an area consisting of several small/medium sized cities. Tokyo is the same (I’ve been told) but at least you can go to a station ticket office and buy a ticket just to “Tokyo station”.

When I tried to tell people I was going to Saitama they looked at me sideways, over the brims of their glasses, etc, and asked me; “where in Saitama are you going?” Me being clueless answered “Saitama-shi” –whereupon they kept their gaze level and asked “Saitama-Shintoshi?” …“Yes? ... (I assume so since it’s called Saitama-something)”. And when I got there and asked the tourist info for a cheap hotel; they sent me to Omiya-koen –which took me back exactly the way I came from, and then onto a sideline into the suburbs.

I got to my tiny hotel, where the staff asked me to forgive the “oldness” of the building and it’s facilities, but coming from a rather interesting YH in Nikko, tatami rooms and spacious (shared) baths and toilets seemed a luxury (still does 8hrs later). I was able to check in early, stash my luggage in my room and walk to the park where I spent the rest of the afternoon, walking around the various paths, teasing the ducks (by hanging about their regular feeding area without feeding them), smelling the plum flowers, playing with photographic challenges (light, noisy backgrounds etc.), watching the other park visitors (and their dogs or families or both).

Now I should re-pack my backpack again, leaving possibly useful changes of clothes on top… 22:47… I’d better get going if I want to get any decent amount of sleep…


(Anyway, even if Saitama-ken is not even mentioned in Lonely Planet, there is touristy stuff here too. I concluded that Saitama and surrounding areas fall in the shadow of Tokyo in areas like tourism, and but they try to keep up with the competition, at least on a local scale. Saitama-ken is known in Japan for making the most traditional Hina-dolls, and there’s a Cartoon museum and a Bonsai garden among other sights. Saitama-Shintoshi (lit. Saitama New-City) is marketed as “the new modern face of Saitama”, with bold modern cityscapes and architecture. There are pretty places and museums of new or old things like most places have. In Saitama-Shintoshi they even have a “John Lennon Museum”, isn’t at least that worth a mention in Lonely Planet? )

Yo!

4 new blogposts, including this one!

I'm in Sendai at the moment, cheap internet at the YH; 200 yen per hour. I'm leaving for Nikko tomorrow morning, staying three nights, meeting a friend while I'm there, and then Tokyo next...! Just about a week until the family gets here! Tanoshimi!

Looks like I'm staying with Tommi's sisteer in Tokyo, but I'm so nervous about writing her!
I should have done so a long time ago, even with Tommi e-mailing her for me too, so now I just have to. And it's so difficult! How to phrase oneself correctly, and to do so in Japanese! ohmgh! The pressure...I'm sure it's not that important, but I still can't help caring about it....

Anyway (2), I'm looking forrward to arrive in Nikko, if not so much to the journey there...