Golden Week. The Beach and some Hiking.

Golden Week is a very important holiday in Asia, but unfortunately all I know about it is that you take a holiday on the Monday, Thursday and Friday of the week. For the Thursday of the week I returned to Harajuku, and walked around with my friends Ulli, Natalia, and Ulli's visiting friend Tobias. I saw some interesting shops, and restaurants. That is what I think makes Harajuku such a great place to visit. Not because of the retarded cosplay outside of Yoyogi park, because the foreigners who exploit the teenagers - who, in all fairness, like having their picture taken in their strange costumes - for a good picture seem like the most vapid and idiotic people I have seen. Anyway, the bars. They're on the 3rd or 4th floors of small apartments in the neighborhood, and they are very compact. But what they like in size they gain in unique character. They either have a great theme (I went to a great Mexican themed bar with a Mexican pizza, which involved a tortilla crust, and salsa as tomato sauce), and carry that theme from how the walls are constructed to the signs on the bathroom, or the bars will give you such a great selection of alcohol that you wonder how a bar smaller than your apartment can afford it. But these bars are all over Tokyo, and really, if you visit Tokyo for a week, visit some of them,
The following day I went to the beach to visit my friend Minori, who I originally went to Singapore with. I went with some people from ICU, including my American friend Jamie, who wanted to teach Minori how to surf. The weather was amazing, but unfortunately the water was too cold to swim in. When we got to the beach there weren't many great waves, so the there were a hundreds of Japanese surfers sitting on there boards in shallow water. It was like the beginning of a big battle in The Lord of The Rings, but with wetsuits and Surf Boards. My intention was to take a great nap on the beach for most of the morning, but the wind got very strong, and you would get showered with sand sitting on the beach for too long. Instead I played soccer against a pair of Peruvian guys who have been living in Japan for the past 10 years, and speak only Spanish and Japanese, and one of who is dating a Parisian girl from my school. Afterwards our whole party went to Minori's place for some of her mom's homemade pizzas, which were delicious. We were all so tired that conversation would often lead to awkward silence. At this point the Peruvians, and the Parisian were no longer with us.
The following day I went hiking with some friends (Matt, Natalia, Ulli, Dan, Risto, and April). I don't know the name of the place where we went hiking, but it was southwest of Tokyo City, and about 2 hours away. The first day had fantastic weather, and we had some magnificent views from 1500 metres. You get this amazing scope of the horizon from that height, and you can see millions of various trees blanketing the foothills, creating this enormous green tapestry covering everything except for the mountains' peaks, which were able to pierce through. I also liked looking directly up the mountain, you can see so many trees and protruding rocks, which are more scattered than on level ground, and they are all green and grey and beautiful. The first day was mostly the climb, which was really tough. The land was very steep, and climbing up the mountains split us up into 2 groups. I was in the slower group which arrived at the chalet an hour after dark, giving us 15 minutes to eat and get ready sleep before the lights in the chalet were all turned off. We didn't really make it.
The second day kind of sucked a bit. We were woken up at 4:30 in the morning by the rustling of eager middle-aged Japanese people getting ready to continue their hikes, and the power returning to the light in our room, which we forgot to turn of the night before. The moment I stepped out to use the bathroom (okay, piss of a giant rock face while cheering! nah... I didn't do that) it began to rain; it would not stop raining until well after we returned home. The group of Japanese hikers was well prepared and had all the appropriate gear: rain coat and pants, boots, gloves, Thinsulate fleece vest, and waterproof knapsack cover. Before they left for their hike, they stood in a large circle and had one of them lead in morning stretches. Soon after we began our second day of hiking, which was mostly descending the mountain. Being at such a high altitude through the rain we were walking through the clouds, which made objects 5 meters away invisible. I didn't mind the rain so much because of this, and I referenced The Highlander and Rocky IV to deaf ears. As we dropped below the clouds and got to a more open part of the hike we could see the clouds roll through the mountains - a classic image of Japan. By the end we got ourselves lost, ending up in a small town several kilometers from our final destination. We decided to hitchhike. April, Risto, Natalia, Ulli, and Dan found a Japanese family that happily made two trips to carry them 15 kilometers to the station. Matt and I got a ride from a Japanese women going to pick up her young daughter from the station. Matt sat in the front seat because he knows more Japanese then I do, and had a polite conversation. I sat in the back with her 3-year-old son. I decided not to talk to him, because he probably doesn't talk to strangers. Afterward the hike, we went to another public bath in the town, and took naps on the train.



For fun let's play a game. It is called guess the nationality of my friends. If you get them all right I will bring you a t-shirt! The rule is that you can't look at old photos to guess. I'll give you a hint: there is a Canadian, an American, a Brit, a Chilean, one guy from London, Paris, and Durham SC, a German,and a Fin.

Baseball and Dancing

I did two notable things this weekend. First, I met with my friend Tomomi and two of her friends, and we went to the Nagisa Music Festival in Odaiba. You can check out the Japanese website at www.nagisamusicfetsival.jp. It took place at the foot of the Fuji TV buliding, the landmark building that has the giant sphere contructed in it, and it consisted of 8 stages and dozens of performers, mostly Japanese, playing various types of club music and covering every single sub-genre. I am more of a Neil Young fan, but it was amazing to see so much live music. I was starting to get cynical about how much art and creativity was coming out of Tokyo, compared to other global cities such as New York, Paris, or London, but I guess that is only because I live in a more isolated suburban part of the city. I mean if you end up living in the suburbs of London, then your just going to be exposed to a bunch of chavs more than anything else. But this festival really showed me how cool Tokyo really is. Anyway, about two hours in the place was filled with red-faced Japanese whirling around, and I had stepped in gum. Our group would occasionally get split up as we visited the various stages, and would reconvene somewhere else. The girls really enjoyed dancing close to the music, but I preferred more bobbing my head at the back of the crowd. The festival continued about an hour past dark, and afterwards everybody at the festival contributed to picking up all the garbage that was tossed on the ground. That was a drag.
The next day I saw the Hanshin Tigers play the Yomiuri Giants at the Tokyo Dome. These two teams have a huge sports rivalry, like the Yankees and Red Sox, or the Lakers and Celtics. The stadium was almost packed to capacity, and the fans were going wild. People love cheering for there teams here, and they do it constantly, which is different from your average North American who watches the game casually and enjoys a beer. Both teams pitched exceptionally well, and the final score was a low 2-0 for the Giants. This made it difficult for my Global House friends, who for the most part have never seen baseball, understand the appeal at all. Man did they not get it...

A new place to live in Guroburu Hausu (Global House)

Well I am back in Japan, and I couldn't have returned at any better time. It is cherry blossom season, and my campus has become really pictueresque. Now, it is much nicer to walk through the city because it's like walking through a nature calender. Unfortunately I have to walk through the city because my bike was confiscated by the city for being parked for too long. Fuckers. I have changed my address. I have moved into a dormitory on campus as opposed to my homestay in Tachikawa. Saying goodbye to my homestay family wasn't to bad. The fed me for one last time, and told about the recent events in their day. When I finally left I got a hearty handshake from my homestay father, and I promised I would return again before I returned to Canada. I have to. I borrowed some coat hangers.
I now live in Global House. I have three roomates in my unit. There is Chris, an exchange student from Hong Kong, he is really nice and friendly, but tends to keep to himself, and apparantly lives of a diet of boiled eggs without the yolks. There is a first year freshman; a Japanese student. He is a little akward, but incredibly excited to be living on his own and acts really outgoing. Finally there is Jun, who is another Japanese student. I knew of him before; he thinks he is too cool, because he is a senior, and runs the breakdancing society, and I haven't said anything to him other than hello. He seems like a dick. Other than that I am surrounded by the friends that I have made through the year, and they are all really happy that I am here. Now that I live on campus I will have more time to enjoy campus life, like club activites, but I have to concern my self with my own nourishment, which is a drag. Class starts next week, and I will be taking some politics classes as a change of pace, and for UofT requirment. This weekend I am going to a Japanese league baseball game with the Giants (wiki them), and going to a music festival with my friend Tomomi.

My last post was in February. I decided to take a trip to Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, but my mother past away suddenly and I had to return home to my family.

I loved my mother very much, and I miss her now so unbelievably. She was my biggest fan, and I know she loved what I wrote about my exchange more than anyone. I know that she tell told everbody about my jokes and stories. I am going to contiue writing for her, and I am going to do everything possible to make the remainder of my exchange as fulfilling as possible.

The Dull Knife/Nikko

Okay so maybe Intensive Level 2 this semester was a bad call. I am so burned out and insecure right now, I can't help but feel dull. I think, as I have told many people, this is a natural thing with exchange students and I'll get over it. But yeah I was feeling really down for a bit, and am getting better now.

Anyway a couple weeks a go I went to Nikko, which is a small town in the mountains, outside Tokyo. There was something like 14 of us in total, 3 girls and 11 guys. It was really a blast. When you go to Nikko you pretty much have two destinations, 1) really old temples in the woods, 2) outdoor natural spas. So on the first day we saw all your basic temples, and that was kind of run of the mill, but because there was 14, it was pretty fun. Then we went to the spa. Spa culture is really a huge part of Japan, and actually most places outside the Americas. People in Japan go to vacation in small towns, like Nikko, to enter any one of the thousands of spas that are remotely scattered throughout the mountains of Japan. This will probably not be the last spa I visit in Japan. Afterwards we got drunk in a Japanese style hotel, well I got drunk. A Japanese style hotel doesn't have any beds, only tatami mats, a table, and futons, which you need to take from the closet. It's very simple and relaxing. The next day we visited a 97 meter waterall. There we saw wild monkeys. The snow banks were meters high, and one of the guys from Thailand, Pap, had never seen snow before. He was pretty stoked. We went home after that.

Next Week? Thailand!

The Place With All The Gyoza

Now that I have been here for six months site seeing has become cumbersome. The problem with Tokyo is that although it is awesome, most of the places just have the same stuff. Visiting a new temple is not that exciting anymore, and the downtown neighbourhoods all have excactly the same buildings, and department stores. So you just can't wonder around anymore.
Yesterday, after hours of lackadaisical debate, Matt, Natalia, Uli, Jonathan, and I went to Ikebukaro. Ikebukaro is another downtown district of Tokyo, like Shinjuku. It was there that we finally found a store that sells individually packed pairs of women's panties, but they weren't used, so our search continues. Yes, that exists here, but that's not what this entry is about, relax. The place we went to was a place called Namjatown, in a giant mall called Sunshine City. The place seemed like it was designed literally after a person's dream. It was seperated across two floors and along each floor there were booths that had carnival games, and restaurants. The theme of the place would change. It would go from film noir, to haunted house, to prison, to ice cream wonderland, to magical castle, to rainforest, all enclosed in this winding and confusing labyrinth. In fact we got split up at one point and couldn't find each other for twenty minutes. The film noir section consisted of these artifical streets that were made to look like a side street in Beijing, including fake cars, shrines, steam, concrete, and almost two dozen minature restaurants and food stalls that each served a different type of gyoza. We all split 24 gyoza and grabbed some burgers from a restuarant called Big Man. After that we went to the ice cream wonderland that served every single concievable presentation, and flavour of ice cream including snake, and fried octupus. We tried the fried octopus ice cream, and wretched. Leaving, we walked through a haunted house, ended up in a forest, and walked out of a train station. We left having seen something entirely different, and Tokyo proved that it still has something to show me.

Oh I'm sorry. Let me clarify what gyoza is. In North America they are know as potstickers. It is a type of chinese dumpling that is popular throughout asia. They consist of meat and vegatables wrapped in dough, which is crimped closed and fried. They are delicious with vinegar and soya sauce.

日本語で話すのがへたです。

School has begun again, and here is the plan: I think I have lost a bit too much weight here because of a lack of snacking and sugary cereal so I'm going to gain some weight. I am aware this a problem that most people wish they had (shut up, you are not fat!). Plus I think I failed my first test of the second semester because of a lack of study, so I have to return to a routine study schedule. The knife is down but not out. Oh... also I decided to grow facial hair. I am in this competition to grow the coolest moustache, I'm going for the same moustache the Eugene Hutz from Gogol Bordello has, but I'll have to probably settle for the fu manchu, like Shaq, or Billy Bob Thorton.