Thursday, May 31, 2007
Hey all,
I know it's been several days since I made a post, but i've been recovering from jet lag and such and been too busy. But here I am, and here I will remain, I guess, back in the good ol' US of A.
On Saturday I ended up going with Okaasan and Mayu to the Animate in Kyobashi, where I made my last anime purchase and bought two posters. I had wanted to get Mayu a going-away present, but she couldn't find anything in Animate that she liked, so I didn't. Then we at lunch at a local "sakana-ryori" (fish) restaurant, my last really good meal in Japan. Actually quite a lot of food in many small dishes. After that, we parted ways because they were going to see a movie but I had not yet begun to pack AT ALL, so I really needed to get home.
But, instead of going home, I took the train FOR THE LAST TIME (how sad), and went back to Hirakata eki. I still was determined to get Mayu-chan a present, along with more presents for my sisters. I also wanted to get rid of the last remaining yen I had. So I went to Vivre, and picked out a few small things. But I still couldn't find the perfect thing for Mayu, so I went back to hirakata eki. Truth was, that morning in Animate she had been looking for an anime CD, but it turns out they didn't have it in stock. So, I went to Tsutaya, the local book/CD/manga store, and even though they are NOT an anime store, they are a larger store so they have more things in stock. Turns out, they had this CD, so I spent the absolute last bit of my yen on it, such that I only had about 500 yen left. But I felt good knowing I had bought something that I was absolutely sure that she would like. Plus, it was a song from the show that we had watched together (Rozen Maiden), so it would also be an appropriate gift from me.
Then home to pack! I was a little scared that all the stuff I had bought would not fit into my two suitcases. But once I unwrapped things and threw out boxes, packages and bags, it managed to fit. It probably helped that I shipped out a small box full of things on Friday morning (which cost an arm and leg and they only accepted cash). But I managed to be packed by the evening, and then I vaccumed and dusted my room. Our last dinner was Okaasan's curry, which I like very much. Then I watched the last episode of anime that I would watch with Mayu, which happened to be an episode of Kamichama Karin. Okaasan also asked a few last minute questions about the cookbook that Mom had sent her, because it was in English. I tried my best, but I don't even understand myself about cooking even in English, so I couldn't explain things to her adequately. Then, off to bed, for a big day.
I got up at 4:45 AM, and brought my suitcases downstairs. Poor otousan tried to bring down my largest one, which was extremely heavy. Poor man is smaller than me, and there was no way he could have carried that thing. But they helped me carry them to the car. On the way to the drop -off point, the car passed through some of the narrowest roads I've ever seen, which is saying quite alot. There's one thing I won't miss about Japan, the narrow roads and dangerous traffic conditions. Then we reached the parking lot where the airport bus comes to pick you up. But, there was a problem: there were too many people already lined up! The ticket man said that there would be no more room for luggage in the undercarriage, so i would have to have it beside me inside the bus. I thought this was going to be impossible since my luggage was so big, but otousan and okaasan carried my luggage for me all the way to the back of the bus, which was a sight to see. My okaasan is a very petite woman, and to see her struggle even with the lighter of my two suitcases was pitiful. I wanted to help, but the aisle was too narrow and only one person could make it down. In the end, there was a compartment at the very end of the bus with one seat that had more room around it for luggage. So that's where it all went.
I bid a quick goodbye to otousan and okaasan and a quick handshake, but it was a hassled, hurried goodbye and not as I would have liked it to be. The stress of getting the luggage on the bus and making sure I would be ok was probably what made it that way. But they waved at me inside the bus and I waved at them as they left the parking lot. Goodbye!
I managed to stay awake until we hit the airport. Thankfully the bell boy came onto the bus and helped me get the luggage out, since i never would have been able to do it by myself. Then I immediately grabbed a baggage cart, and i was ok on my own. I found the Northwest check in point, but after 20 mins of waiting in line, I found out that they weren't checking in my flight yet, and I had to wait two hours! So I mangaged to find a place that I could sit out of the way with my huge baggage cart next to me. Turns out that the airport had free wireless, so i brought out my laptop and used that for a while to make the time pass faster.
Finally I was able to check in for my flight around 10. I go up there and the first thing the lady tells me is that my big bag is overweight. Overweight! I knew this might happen, since i felt that it was much heavier than when I came to Japan. I had to pay an extra charge for it, which was $25. Let's see, I had about 500 in yen, and $20 saved from my flight on the way to Japan. Not enough. How about....the credit card? Yes! Finally, the credit card i was given by my parents becomes useful. I wasn't able to use it in Japan to buy anything, or even to pay for shipping at the post office, but I was able to use it to pay for an overweight fee at the airport. Allright.
At that exact time I met up with Haley, who incidentally also had to pay an overweight fee, but she paid in yen because she had sooo much yen b/c of her scholarship. Now luggage-free, we found our gate then walked around. I tried to get rid of the last of my yen by buying some takoyaki (octopus balls) at the food stand, and then a few other things because they were also able to accept American dollars (but the change was in yen, which messed up my whole plan to get rid of all my yen!). So I ended up having about 50 yen left. Oh well, I mostly used it all up.
Plane ride itself was fine. I actually slept quite alot, and watched the movie Happy Feet. I was sitting next to a Taiwanese woman, since the plane originated in Taipei, Taiwan. I tried speaking Japanese to her at first, and she was like, "I'm sorry, I don't understand English" and I stopped trying after that. Haley moved into the empty seat next to me after a while, and I read the Newtype Romance she had.
Finally, we hit Detroit in America. Going through customs was a pain in the butt. It was such a change from the polite Japanese way, where they bow at you and request your cooperation very nicely. You hit America, and you have people yelling at you to have your passport out and to take off your shoes and laptops when you go through detectors. It was somewhat of a rude awakening. I missed Japan already at this point.
We picked up our luggage to get it through customs. I saw that my big bag had been opened, but nothing taken. Then I put it through inspection (it wasn't inspected at all), and then handed it off to some other officials. This was the last time I saw it (ooh foreshadowing).
So then we met up with Haley's mom by some weird coincidence, she was taking Haley's brother home from a national Odyssey of the Mind competition. So, Haley was already having a family reunion of sorts, as well as meeting up with many people from her hometown. I sat at the very back of the plane next to a stranger, and slept most of the way. Then, we were at the final stop: Portland, ME.
Haley's whole family, even grandparents, came to get her. Mom came to get me. Yay. Plus I was tired and in a bad mood and not wanting to come home. Then, guess what happened. That's right - my luggage never showed up. I was the last one waiting after the carousel stopped. I was sooo angry, and then when I went to see the lady, I found out that my bags had stopped in Detroit. They didnt' get on the plane to Maine with me. Why?? Why had Haley gotten her bags, and I didn't? We did everything in the exact same way, so i still have no idea what happened. Anyways, the lady said that as soon as they found the bags, they would ship them to my house. Grr...
So, I had no clothes and no presents for anybody as I went home. Mom asked Granny to bring over some of her clothes, as Mom's and Sara's wouldnt' fit me. They all came over that night and had dinner, and even though I was dead tired I stayed awake and talked. Then Sara comes in and immediately says, "Let's go see Pirates!"
In the end, I did go see Pirates of the Carribean 3, and got home around 1:30ish, and went to sleep at 2 AM ish, the longest Sunday of my life (about 34 hrs straight awake). Yikes.
Since then, I've been taking care of business that needs to be taken care of before i go to Colby. My luggage FINALLY got here late last night, so I've got some clothes to wear. I went and saw Spiderman 3 with my father last night as well. Recovering from jetlag pretty nicely I think, but I am still really tired. My computer is nice to come home to as well.
Well that's all for now, hopefully i will be posting more Japan-related entries as I continue to put up things that I never had time to write when I was there. I do miss Japan already, though, and do want to go back someday.
Until next time~
Don't forget to leave comments and tags, plz.
posted @ 5/31/2007 04:19:00 AM
Friday, May 25, 2007
Hey all,
Well, today is Friday and I'm leaving on Sunday. There's only two days left in Japan. I can't believe it!
Today we are going to Kyoto for the last time. Ryan(friend from Colby) is up visiting us from his program in Nagasaki and we'll show him around. But its raining, its already late in the day, so I don't expect to hit up more than one temple (probably Fushimi Inari). And we'll have our last ramen and karaoke at Kyoto Eki.
Tomorrow Okaasan wants to go to a museum & movie & shopping, so that'll be a full day. I'm just worried because i haven't really packed yet! That's not good...today i'm going to try and ship something out but its pretty small.
So, let's continue from where I left off yeseterday:
Things I will miss about Japan:
5. The clean, fast bus system. You can always count on them. As a matter of fact, all the safe, fast transportation here. Its great!
6. Conbinis. That is to say, convenience stores. There are so many here, and they all are cheap with lots of stuff. There's a conbini store culture here, where people can live off these stores. You can do it, I've done it.
7. Japanese TV. It is just too much. The absolute trashiness of it somehow becomes attractive after watching it for a while. But there's only so much I can take of celebrities sampling local dishes and saying "Oishii!" or talking about current events or participating in stupid contests and making fools of themselves (because those three things alone comprise approximately 73% of all Japanese TV). And of course there's the J-doramas, the news, and then educational programs and anime. That's about it.
8. Anime culture, of course. It will just be sad to leave a place where many many people like the same stuff I do, and where its really easy to watch anime or to get anime-related goods. Thats one thing I will miss very much.
9. Being less than an hour away from interesting sights and interesting things to do. I've never lived this close to a big city where there is lots of stuff to do. I mean, Colby is in the middle of NOWHERE and Glastonbury is not that much better. I will definitely miss that.
10. Prettiness. Japan is pretty. It is full of pretty things, and it is kept very clean. They all recycle to a degree that Americans do not understand, and the janitors here are very serious about thier work. Policemen and bus drivers wear white gloves, and of course many people wear the surgical masks. It is just so clean here, it will be hard to adjust to American again.
Well folks, thats it for now. I don't anticipate having time to update again before I leave on Sunday, so - here's Kim, signing off from Japan. I'll catch you on the flip side!
As always, comments are appreciated.
PS - Please do keep checking this blog, as when I return to America I will continue to make posts and pictures that I didnt have time to before. Check it out!
Thanks for your patronage this semester!
posted @ 5/25/2007 10:32:00 AM
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Hey all,
Well I thought I was going to be able to update on Tuesday, but that didn't come to pass as I was not feeling so well and thus didn't go to school. But on Wednesday I felt better and went to Denden Town with Haley and Shin.
First Shin wanted to take some pictures so we went to those PuriKura machines (read: those mechanical booths where you walk in and get pictures taken with people) at an arcade. Man, those things are LIGHTYEARS beyond what we have in America. Everything works with touch computer screens. First, you put in 400 yen (bout $3.50), then you can scan in a background if you have something special in mind. If you don't, you get to choose 6 backgrounds/picture styles (like french fries, Pocky, circus, teddy bears, etc) and that's all BEFORE you go into the booth. Then you go in, and you get only one try for each of the backgrounds and then choose the ones that you like the most. Then you go back out to another booth where you get to edit the images as you see fit. With the stylus you can draw on the images in a variety of colors and styles, you can put preselected sayings in Japanese (like, "Friends Forever!" type thing) or a date stamp. You can add sparklies in many varieties, and little icons of hearts or bears or food or anything, really. It is just amazing. The machine gives you about 5 mins to do this, and then you can choose how many and what size pictures you want to print out. Then it prints them, and there's a little table with scissors for you to cut them up with. Truly spectacular.
After we did that, Haley and I decided to visit DenDen Town for the last time *sniff* . Shin came with us, but only for an hour or so because she had alot of stuff to do before leaving for Taiwan (lucky girl! From Japan, an all-expense paid trip to Taiwain for three days is in the range of $300. So cheap!) so we said our goodbyes.
To make a long story short, Haley and I accomplished all our goals for Denden Town. We found the stores we wanted and bought what we wanted (thanks to a last minute money transfer from Dad, I was able to go out and buy something that I really wanted). So, we were both happy.
Now here's the short story made long:
~~~~~~Begin Otaku-speak~~~~~~~
Ok so for my last time in Denden town, I wanted no regrets! We started with a figure store, the one the Death Note had been in last time. I FINALLY caved in and bought a Giroro keychain. I looked at the big Miina figurine, but of course it was 4500 yen.
Here's a picture:
Of course it looks JUST LIKE the one that Densha Otoko had, so I wanted it but that's just too expensive. So I settled on getting the small Gashapon version. Still looks good ( I hope).
So, then we saw the famous MANDARAKE store (we visited its biggest outlet in Akihabara, of which this one was just a mere shadow). I have never seen such narrow aisles in my life. BUT! It was in this store that I saw the Athrun figure that I have been wanting for nearly two years. It was the going for the cheapest that I've ever seen in Mandarake, probably because its a figure of a guy and not many guys will buy those. It was priced at about $16.50, which is SUCH A DEAL because I've seen it for $40 + shipping on Ebay. Even in all the other stores in Denden town it was at least ten dollars more expensive. So, I went ahead and got it, and now I have it, yay! Definitely my best purchase of the day, and maybe in Japan (but plastic ramen, i mean come on...).
AFter that we stopped by Osaka Gundams (yes, a store devoted entirely to Gundams)which was AWESOME. They had a 6 ft Gundam model right in the middle of the store, and one the second level they had made it to look like a giant Gundam hand was crashing thru the wall. Too bad you coudlnt' take pictures, because it was SOO COOL.
So I must have had amazing luck that day, because you could get pencil boards with Gundam characters on them, but they were all wrapped up so you couldn't tell which one you were getting. I really wanted a certain two of them, so I picked at random and, guess what! I GOT THEM! Even the super rare one that I wanted, I got! Fortune must have been smiling on me that day. (But not Haley. Even when I picked for her when she was buying KKM plushies, she still got Conrad. Too bad). Ha HA ha .
Then we went to a doujin shop that I hadn't been to before, and it was like...omg so big with so much stuff. I got Haley to buy her first doujin! And of course I bought some too....And on the CD floor there was a CD of Chemistry's song that was used for the last GSD opening theme, so I got that too. Then, on to Animate!
Animate was, and still is, the best anime store around. I got a Haruhi mousepad and John's present (John, your souvenir will be three-fold). Then we went to the CD floor and of course, guess what day it happened to be? That's right, the hatsubai (opening day) of the Motteke! Sera Fuku~ CD! (Lucky Star op). They were blasting it all thru the store and even on the same floor from different locations, while of course still replaying the OP on a small TV in front of the counter. Simply amazing. Well, I decided to do my part and parcel to make it #1 on the Oricon chart, so I went ahead and bought it. That felt good! Oricon #1 wo Mezase!
So then, we left Animate and wandered around, looking at the cosplay shop for the last time, and the figure shop that had the Kyon figure that I desperately wanted. We found it! And both Haley and I wanted it, so I finally did something good and bought it for Haley as a birthday present, since when it was her birthday I didn't have enough money to get her one. So that was great and now we have a matching set of chibi Kyons. Can life GET any better?
Finaly we found this figure shop that Haley was wanting to find, and she bought an L plushie that i pointed out to her and I got something else for John. Then we bid a tearful farewell to Denden town *sniff* Gooodbye~~~~~
~~~~~~End Otaku-speak~~~~~~~
But getting home sure was a bother. We were both so tired that we must have been spacing out because we missed our stop and had to ride the Osaka Loop around again. Darn! As a result, we were late for dinner. This was the night I told Okaasan that I would bring Haley over for dinner, and we were late. Not a good thing. But Okaasan didn't seem angry. She had made mochi for dinner, so we ate mochi for dinner. All kinds - cheese mochi, soysauce + seaweed mochi, adzuki mochi, and daifuku! And then she helped Haley put on one of her kimonos and we took pictures. Then Haley left and Mayu-chan and I watched Rozen Maiden. Yup.
So I'm kina hurrying cause I gotta go soon, but tomorrow Ryan (friend from Colby) is gonna visit us on our last day! So we decided that Kyoto is a good place to show him around and for us to end our Japan semester on a very Japan-like note. In Kyoto we will go see two temples that we've been wanting to see, probably eat ramen, and do karaoke. My last excursion in Japan~\
Probably on Saturday I will spend most of hte day with my host family and make sure I am packed. Then it's the long plane flight on Monday. Too soon, too soon.
Things I will miss about Japan:
1. Being able to leave your stuff anytime, anywhere without fear of people touching it (I seriously left my computer and backpack sitting in the lounge for hours and no one disturbed it at all)
2. Ramen.
3. Being bowed to by people and made to feel like you are really important when buying something at a store.
4. Being called "Ojousama" by a policeman (!)
More to come.
I will update at least once more, stay tuned!
As always, comments are appreciated
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posted @ 5/24/2007 03:15:00 PM
