ueno? ueYES.

i feel like someone has made that joke before too, but i can't remember who, so i'm gonna steal it.

on my last thursday adventure i headed over to ueno park, which is only a few stops past ikebukuro, so i relished a bit in the not having to puzzle over whether i was lost or not. however was not expecting this place to be so huge. i must've stayed there for three to four hours, but i still didn't get to see it all!

first stop was to toshogu shrine, because my main attraction in going to the park was to see the enshrined flame left over from the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki. toshogu was supposed to be a really cool temple too, but when i got there...sad sauce: under construction D:

at least it's incentive for me to come back (not that i need it! that place was gorgeous). the weather was pretty much perfect, if albeit a little warm, and the fall leaves were workin' it.







a japanese lady (bright blue dress and i'm 99% sure i saw her at baba the next day) was standing next to me at the flame shrine, and i asked her if she could tell me the meaning behind the stone carvings nearby since i couldn't read the kanji. she was very sweet, if a little surprised i could understand her (which i am ashamed to say, but i couldn't really. simple japanese conversation i get, but peace/war/life topics are just a tad bit harder, if you know what i'm saying), and we chatted for a while. i do remember her saying that she had been to hiroshima to see the peace monuments as a high schooler, and that she hadn't really gotten the magnitude of it all (since back then it was more like "memorize what we're telling you because it'll be on your test!") until her grandmother died, and then she went back for a business trip years later and it all hit her. we stood together for a bit staring at the memorial, and then she headed to toshogu shrine to do some praying, and i headed out.



of course, then minute i saw some old men feeding stray cats, i bee-lined over. they must've seen me wavering on whether or not to ask if i could sit with them and pet the cats, and motioned me over. very sweet, and one told me i had no need to worry about the strays because tons of admirers fed them, and if it's cold or rainy, they crawl in with "the tent people" (japan's homeless). i might buy some cat food soon and see if they flock to me too~


oh man. the daibutsu. this was by far one of the best moments of my ueno adventure. i decided to head on up and see what kind of weird temple was through the trees. except there was a purifying spot. and i had no idea how to purify myself. the general idea is first hands, then mouth, then tip the handle back so the water falls out etc etc etc but i didn't know which hand to start with and i wasn't too keen on insulting buddha, so i kinda stood at the entrance and looked around without going in.

THEN. then the priest came over. oh man this guy was a charmer. walked straight up to me and said "you have very cute eyes." to which i just laughed and bowed and said thank you, and then in an attempt to break any awkwardness asked him how i should do the purifying. he grabbed my hands and pulled me over to the spot, took the water handle and splashed water over my hands, then declared me done. little fast don'cha think buddy? but i had gotten the green light, so i had a quick glance around at the giant daibutsu head (preserved after it broke off from the main statue body during an earthquake) and the shrine (stupa?), bowed in thanks to the priest, and was about to proceed out like a good little gaijin, but he grabbed me AGAIN and dragged me over to the buddha face, into the area where you are MOST DEF NOT SUPPOSED TO BE AS A TOURIST and slapped my hand onto buddha's nose. complete and utter shock was the only the i could register. i was all "AM I ALLOWED I DO THIS???" and he was all "yeah yeah douzo," so i did what any foreigner in that situation does: stood there for five minutes and petted buddha's nose. (let it be known that buddha was totally not happy, because when i threw a 10 yen coin [couldn't remember what the good coin to use for gods was] into the offering box, it got stuck in the grate above the coin holder. ho jeebus. buddha if you are reading this i am super sorry about the nose petting and the [[most likely]] wrong coin throwing) D:



i took in some more sights, and ventured by the pond with all the lilies and pretty kouyou leaves. chased some ducks down for pictures too, like the beast i am.




second favorite part of my adventure were the performers. so there's this guy. and he's a pretty cool guy. we'll call him luna (shaddup i'm in a harry potter mood). luna is half naked, covered in white paint, and acting his heart out, pretending to be a discus thrower, mona lisa, the statue of david, etc etc. and he's good too: i was laughing my ass off, especially when he would bring this sign out (camera=$) and stare at photo-takers until they dropped some yen in his box (yes, i paid up too) :D


so this one old guy standing next to me donates quite a bit, and luna insists on giving him a hug, but old man is so not having it (told him to go back to his box lolforever) and walks back to his spot next to me. so luna turns his stare to ME and i'm all "who me?" complete with the finger to nose pointing just to make sure. i must've looked skeptical because luna grabbed a towel, dusted himself off dramatically (although i still ended up with white imprints on my dark purple shirt haha) and then held out his arms waiting. and i mean, really, would you have said no? talk about fun! so i walked over and hugged him (to the applause of a crowd of japanese people highly amused at mime+gaijin antics) :D (the old man later said i had good 自信 "confidence")
of course he put on a show pretending to rob me, and moving his hands towards my ass, to which i smacked him on the back a few times and he let me go to resume his mime-ish ways.


i took in another performer and some more fall leaves, and then went home for some needed foot rest~




video is on the long side but this guy was hilarious in person. i love the part when he reaches out for the bag and his real hand pops out, and then in the song you can hear "i was under the influence." it really does explain everything :D

the day of cute kids

it's finally time for my super late update on the day of shichi-go-san! the ever helpful wiki describes it this as "a traditional rite of passage and festival day in Japan for three and seven year-old girls and three and five year-old boys, held annually on November 15. As Shichi-Go-San is not a national holiday, it is generally observed on the nearest weekend."

my host niece turned 3 years old recently, so it was her first shichi-go-san celebration, and as such, we were all pretty excited. even roberta and lana, previous host students of my family, came to see! we headed to the temple (tokugawa ieyasu's home temple: we even got to go on a tour and see all his rooms. toilet included. wut.) but ended up there super ahead of when my host niece was to arrive, so decided to stroll and take in the festival sights.







y-chan and k-tan finally show up! SO. FREAKING. CUTE.



we did some praying for y-chan (haha love her face~)

then took a quick tour in ieyasu's home area! his garden, lucky whore.

after that was the actual shichi-go-san ceremony. i wish i could've taken pictures guys YOU HAVE NO IDEA but it was forbidden inside the temple area. the priests were so kickass yo. i almost died laughing when one, looking extremely serene in his orange robes, his prayer beads in place, and calmly standing in front of tons of kids and their families, whipped a microphone out of his sleeve as if it was no big thing. which it probs wasn't, but i still found it highly amusing.
the ceremony consisted mainly of one of the priests chanting, another beating a drum, and one stoking up a large fire in front of him. i really should've posted earlier; my memory is shot without pictures D:
then all the families went up to the pot where the fire had been, and where tons of incense was smoking (incensing? ww), and one by one reached out over the sticks and pulled some of the smoke towards them, first wafting it over their body, then face, then head. it was slightly awkward to do it myself: like i was stealing their incense, or making a mockery of tradition because i had no idea the significance behind said incense wafting.
anywho. the kids all received chitose ame (which is 1000 year candy, long sticks of sweet nomliciousness that symbolize long life and good health), and then we headed out.
here is y-chan being ridic adorable with her chitose ame and cotton candy~

then we took a walk through the town (while very difficult in heels, definitely worth it because this place was full of picture goodies)






and then came the food. oh god the food. the restaurant's room wasn't big enough for all of us, so us three gaijin were bundled off to a place with chairs, and the food was brought to us. there must've been ten different courses. IT KEPT COMING. it was pretty traditional japanese cuisine, so some of the courses were a hit (that weird dumpling thing that nevertheless tasted good) and some weren't (we gaijin aren't too fond of eating things with faces still left on). after us gaijins finished our meal (so expensive holy jeebus. if i ever have shichi-go-san kids in japan, we're just getting some celebratory nikuman from 7-11 and heading home yo.) we rejoined the family and ate tasty strawberry shortcake (of course) with k-tan's face on it. i got the mouth. lolforever.

translation please

and this is what i got from my nearest book, カモメに飛ぶことを教えた猫 ("the cat who taught the seagull to fly"), and um LOLWUT.


my life is defined by a picture of cats. which, now that i think about it, sounds pretty good~ ww

in my closest ENGLISH book, Maximizing Study Abroad, i got "they do not know limits." which is pretty damn cool too.

海だ！海ーーーーwhat are you, a dog?

sorry for the only slightly obscure manga reference. which none of you get. anyway! i decided to tick off another place from my "to go to while in japan" list, and thank god for five day long breaks from school yo. for my first solo big adventure that required actual (minimal) planning, i chose kujukuri beach, which is in chiba prefecture, and is known for being the second longest beach in japan.

while i dislike swimming (bathing suits), i really do like the beach, and always had loads of fun there with friends, so i was really looking forward to this trip! it wasn't TOO far away, only 2-3 hours via train/bus/walking, so i figured it would be a good starting point for bigger/further away adventures.

thursday morning came, and i woke up slightly later than planned, but hey, kujukuri wasn't going anywhere, so i got all packed up (letter writing stuff, glass tube for sand collection, bags for shells, and a towel for chilling) and jacketed (you can never tell with japan's weather yo), and then...my bra broke. you know, the REALLY good one that you know you can always count on because it fits you well and you're really close? the wire snapped, and i was SAD. not the best start to my day, but i persevered (GAMBARIMASHITA).

made it to my chosen beach town, oami, without too much trouble. everyone i asked for help from was extremely nice, and even wrote down directions for me :]

this is rural oami from the bus window on my way to the beach bus stop

finally made it there! beach go time yo <3








basically i sat on the blanket and watched the waves, took loads of pictures, collected SO MANY SNAIL SHELLS (that place was a goldmine. found a sand dollar too! IKR?), ate my lunch of onigiri and korokke/spicy chicken from the konbini, and amused myself by playing in the water (slash getting attacked by waves) and doing the "catch me if you can" game.

and older japanese couple saw me doing it and tried too. it was super cute seeing this little old grandma running away squealing when the wave came closer than she expected. i had a bounty of shells, so i walked over to them (probs scared the shit out of them with my "random gaijin wants to talk to you omg what do you do??" moment) and after chatting a bit about my japan situation, offered the lady the seashell (海のお土産ですって) and in return she gave me two sweet sugary candies that tasted like maple syrup. noms. after that they left with 気をつけて帰ってね！(go home safely), and i decided to head back too.

buuuut as i was walking towards the bus stop i saw a bus round the corner and head away in the direction i wanted to go, but i was too far away to run to stop it. and of course, like i thought, it was the last bus for an hour. i drank some coffee while i watched the sun start to set (despite it only being FOUR PM JEEBUS JAPAN), and went to a small corner store nearby to buy pineapple purin and some chocolate. which i demolished while i waited for the bus.

anywho. so then i'm back at home station safe and sound, and realize it would be super fun to leave a trail of sea shells throughout the town on my way home, and see if people would take them. so i left one by the escalator, one by the ticket counter, one on a mailbox by the high school, and about three to four along the walls. i was giggling to myself the whole time :D lolz forever. though i hope i didn't scare some poor japanese person who's seen that uzumaki movie. freaky shit yo.

all in all, despite a runny nose/sore throat from playing in the water/being outside in the cold, i had an amazing time. it was so nice being outside of tokyo, and when i look back, i can see that some of the best japan moments i've had so far are when i'm NOT in the city. no doubt, i like the city experience of shopping and tasty food and loads of opportunities, but nikko, karuizawa, kujukuri: those have been my best days so far. maybe it's just because i like exploring new places, but in truth i think it's because i'm really not a city girl. i prefer being surrounded by mountains and lakes and lots of trees that change beautifully during the seasons. and chilling, chilling with friends is good, especially when you don't have to spend money to do it (although i did for the beach. holy jeebus travelling takes a lot out of your wallet, but it was totally worth it).

tomorrow is my host niece's shichi-go-san七五三の日, so we're going to celebrate by getting her all dolled up in a kimono and then blessed at a temple, then delish food. oooh and i bought her a big totoro plushy as a present :] cannot wait! will try to post about that too! you know, if i don't get lazy again. but i always have my dear roomie to whip me into blogging shape <3

along the rail

since most of my friends have already blogged the karuizawa trip/i'm just too lazy/have fallen behind on blogging and need to catch up NOW, i'm just going to skip ahead to my side trips along the train stops on my tobu tojo line home.

first along my side trips was to nakaitabashi, which from the window looked like it had a cute shopping boulevard, so i hopped off.





nakaita ended up being a small little town with lots of back-end retail stores with clothes mainly for the little obaachans walking down the streets. there was one really adorable one selling takoyaki, and i almost almost ALMOST bought some. i regret that decision to listen to my full stomach. she looked like she could make good conversation. and octopus balls, ya know? but yeah. cute tiny town.

next was wakoushi! from the train you can see these awesome graveyards and the surrounding shrines/temples, and since i'm into that stuff, i got off, bought broguen a hippo from cute store, and then i walked. and walked. and walked. and walked some more. bought some coffee from a vending machine. walked some more. no lie, i had about 20,000 steps on my meter when i got home!

i didn't find the big temple that i was searching for, but wakoushi is full of smaller ones, so i at least got to take some pictures, and scare some elementary kids along the way (they thought i was following them, but really, we were just headed the same way hahaha~) :D

also made sure i apologized to the graves before taking their pictures too








SO. my most recent stop along tobu line was a last minute decision to get off (on my way home from a failed attempt at ghibli museum with maddie, which ended in picnics and cat cafes) at shimoakatsuka to see the daibutsu my okaasan had told me about. it was about 7 pm when i got there, which in japan time means it's already pitch black. a little chilly too, but i was able to subsitute coffee and lots of fast walking as a warmer up-er on my walk.

the walk looked a little far (from top to bottom of the map, basically), but i was determined to see daibutsu-sama! after some second-guessing, thanking signs that told the poor gaijin where to go, and asking for directions, i made it there...except the park to see daibutsu-sama was closed. SAD SAUCES GALORE. watched people at batting range for 20 minutes instead, then headed home. i shall try again soon!


here are some treats along the roads though:

oh hai thar pikachu?


JV! YOU CAME BACK FOR ME~~~~ even after i treated you so bad. (for those who don't know, this is my car, JV (jank van) <3)