Yokohama 横浜 Jan 2012

When I originally made this blog I was still too busy being a student to keep this up to date, but now I'm trying to go back and write about some of the cool places I visited the various times I lived in Japan. Writing about something I did 5 years ago (wow! really 5 years?!??) might mean that I miss some stuff and end up coming back to these posts later as I remember things.

Yokohama 横浜 Chinese New Year

The time of year that we went meant we had accidentally timed our visit perfectly for New Year celebrations and parades. When we arrived we went straight to the China Town area. There were so many people! We tried on some of the Lion dance heads, then made our way through the busy streets with strings of lanterns overhead to where the parade would take place.

After watching the parade we went to Kantei-byo temple, just off the street where the parade had been. It seemed much more colourful and elaborately decorated than a lot of temples I'd visited. 

  In the evening we headed over to the Minato mirai area to see the skyline and take a few purikura.

Morioka 盛岡 June 2016

In the few months before leaving Japan I tried to get in a few last day trips around the Tohoku area. I'd heard about the noodles in Morioka so me and Will decided to head up north to try them and explore the city.

It took about 40 minutes to reach Morioka by shinkansen. Before going for Morioka's famous Wanko Soba noodles, we had a little wander round the city. The first place we visited was Sakurayama shrine. At the entrance to the shrine was a purification ring 茅の輪. There was a sign telling you how to walk through it.
茅の輪のくぐり方
最初左にまわります。
次に右にまわります。
最後左にまわって、お進み下さい。
茅の輪を三度くぐる事により
今年上半期の罪や穢れをお祓いしましょう。
First you walk through the ring and turn left, next walk thrrough and turn right, finally walk through and turn left. Go through the ring again and carry on walking towards the shrine. Walking through the ring will purify you of any misdeeds or impurities from the first half of the year.

Once purified at the shrine, we carried on through the shrine and came to Morioka Castle Ruins Park. While there is no longer a castle at this park, it's quite nice for a walk around the ruins, stone walls, and little red bridges in the park. It was quite quiet when we visited but it gets very busy in the Spring for cherry blossom viewing parties 花見. We walked back into town along a little stream and saw some turtles on the way.

Next we went to find a restaurant that served wanko soba called Azumaya. Wanko soba is a speciality in Morioka. You eat as many mouthful servings of soba noodles as you can.

We both sat knelt at a table, where we were given a variety of toppings for our noodles like raw tuna, mushrooms, seaweed, daikon radish and a few others. The server stays standing by the table with a tray full of small bowls of mouthful servings of noodles. When we took the lids off our bowls, wanko soba eating began. Everytime we finished our serving she would pour another serving into our bowl while saying something like  「じゃんじゃん」「頑張って」「はいまだまだ」「もう一杯」 which is things like "One more bowl" or " keep trying" in English. She stacked the empty bowls next to us. Every 10-15 bowls we would have a couple of minutes break while she went to refill her tray of noodles. (She was serving Will, me, and a man who was sharing our table.) When we were full we had to make sure we had emptied our bowl and put the lid back on, or else we would get another serving. It was very fast paced and sometimes noodles would fly everywhere while they were being poured (thrown) into our bowls. I managed 69 bowls and Will had 111. We got a little certificate and a little souvenir that said how many we had eaten. The souvenir kind of looked like the little wooden ema boards that people write wishes on at shrines. It was a fun experience and definitely something I wanted to try while living in the Tohoku area.

Not wanting to head straight back to Sendai, we had another wander round the city. We decided to go into an owl cafe. Owl cafes were becoming very popular at the time so it was something I wanted to try before leaving. At this one, unlike cat cafes, there was a small cafe area and in the next room there were owls and other birds around the edge of room sitting on perches. You could stroke them or ask a staff member to help you hold one. I tried, and held an owl for a few minutes, but actually I was a bit nervous of them haha. While there were a few cute owls in there and it was another fun "Japan" experience, I wasn't sure how I felt about how all the birds were all just sitting round on perches, with some sort of lead attached to their claws. This cafe did seem to have an area for owls to be away from cutomers, so that they don't have to be bothered by people all day. So maybe they limit how long the owls are "working". It was kind of fun to try out another novelty cafe though.
There were two cute owls that seemed very attached. If someone held one of them the other one would seem irritated.

Onsen in Yamagata Nov 2014

Onsen in Yamagata Prefecture
22nd-23rd November 2014

After recommendations from teachers at school, I decided to go to Ginzan Onsen in Yamagata.
It's quite difficult to get to from Sendai, so I thought I should stay there for the night and go somewhere else the next day. However, it was a very last minute trip so a lot of the ryokan and hotels were full. In the end, me and Ana decided to experience a night in a manga/internet cafe, which turned out to be a cool experience.

Ginzan Onsen  銀山温泉

The journey to Ginzan Onsen from Sendai took about 4 hours by bus, train and then another bus. (bus to Yamagata. Train to Oishida. Bus to Ginzan Onsen)
Arriving at Ginzan Onsen felt like going back in time. It's a very small place that has a river running the length of the town with lots of bridges going over it. My photo skills don't quite do it justice..

        Our first view of the main street.            Shirogane Waterfall at the end of the main street
At the end of the main road with the bridges and old buildings is Shirogane Waterfall. If you walk further through a small forest area you will come to a silver mine cave that you can walk through.
After having a little explore, we walked back to Ginzanso ryokan so we could go in the onsen.
We relaxed in the outdoor baths with views of the forest for a while before finding a soba restaurant in town.

There are public foot baths dotted around the town at the side of the river. We warmed our feet here while waiting for it to get darker. At night the buildings are lit up and the street is lit by gas lamps. (Again I need to work on how to use my camera at night..)
I've heard that the town is beautiful in the winter when they get a lot of snow - although it can be a bit difficult to get to in winter.

First Manga cafe experience

Although we'd have liked to stay at one of the ryokan, it was a very last minute trip. When we got back to Yamagata station we had a short walk through the city before reaching the manga cafe we'd chosen. After this first experience of using a manga cafe, I started to use them for last minute trips to Tokyo. When you arrive at a manga cafe, if it's your first time going you have to sign up by filling in a form, then you will be given a member's card and you can choose your room. We chose a Family room that had a couple of floor chairs, table, pillows, computer and a TV. Often room choices will include private booth with a reclining chair, booth with a massage chair, flat booth (that has a soft floor to sit on), family room, couple room, sofa room and chairs in the open space. Some places will be in booths that feel like cubicles whereas some manga cafes will have booths with floor to ceiling doors and a key card for more privacy. In a lot of the manga cafes I stayed at you have a computer with internet, games, films and TV. You can also choose how long you will stay, it could be for a few hours or you can choose a night pack which, depending on the manga cafe, could be around 6-10 hours. Then you're able to browse the massive manga selection, read magazines, help yourself to soft drinks, order from the food menu, use the showers, use the computer in your room and sleep. This particular family room we stayed in was just on a hard floor with floor chairs to sleep on. I could sleep but Ana struggled a bit. One that i used regularly in Ikebukuro in Tokyo had soft matress floors that extended under the computer desk so you could fully lie down in them. Some manga cafes even have karaoke, darts and billiards areas.
They can be a very convenient place to stay if you don't have time to find accommodation, a cheap alternative to a hotel, somewhere to sleep if you miss your last train, or somewhere to relax for a few hours in the day. However if you are using them as somewhere to stay the night, it can be risky because you can't make reservations in some a lot of manga cafes, so you could be unlucky and turn up to find they have no private booths left that night.

Kaminoyama Onsen


We didn't really have a plan for the second day, but after going to an onsen on the first day we thought that we wanted more onsen in Yamagata. After a little research online in our manga cafe room we found Kaminoyama onsen which was a short train ride away. When we arrived we visited Kaminoyama Castle on hill with views of the town. Just behind the castle we visited Tsukioka Shrine. This small town is dotted with onsen, shrines and foot baths. It also has a small samurai district. We visited Tsukioka hotel to use their onsen. It has a mix of indoor and outdoor baths with views of the hotel's Japanese gardens. On our way wandering back through the town we stumbled upon Kurikawa Inari Jinja, a small shrine with lots of torii gates. We stopped to have a wander through the tunnel of torii gates before heading back to the station.

ただいま！

I'm home! and I know I didn't update this while I was in Japan, but I didn't really have time there. Now I'm back, I might sometimes write about my experiences in Japan (that is not a promise....) There's probably no one left who even reads this anymore, so now this blog is more for me to write in so that I can remember things that happened in Japan and so that I don't end up talking about it too much in real life, because nobody likes that year abroad student...

I flew home to Birmingham airport from Kansai International airport on the 10th July, with two very short stops on the way. I had been staying at my friend Amanda's flat in Kyoto for about a week (will write about that another time) and on the 9th July I took a couple of trains to a Best Western hotel close to the airport in Hineno. This journey was very difficult with two suitcases and handluggage, but luckily in Japan people didn't laugh at me if I started struggling or falling over them, like I think they might have in England. When I arrived at Hineno station, I found they didn't have any elevators so I had to take them all one by one up and down a couple of flights of stairs, before the very short walk to the hotel. The hotel was very nice, there was a public bath there so I used that and then had tea at the restaurant. For tea they served buffet style japanese food. So I took a lot as it would probably be my last proper meal in Japan. At 5:30 the next morning I caught a free shuttle bus to the airport and arrived about an hour before check in opened. When it did open and I got to the desk, they had some issues working out my passport or flight tickets or something. She took quite a while and eventually asked if I had a visa for Germany :S (But I'm from the EU??) I think she felt a bit bad for making me wait because she didn't care that my baggage was several kilograms overweight or that I had too many pieces of handluggage. In the departure lounge I had my actual last bit of food in Japan. I bought a small tray of prawn tempura sushi and then nearly missed the boarding time for my flight while eating it.
My first flight was to Beijing airport and took about 3 hours. The second flight was about 10 hours to Dusseldorf and I had a whole two seats to myself! Aisle and window seat! Unfortunately, this flight was delayed for about an hour. In Dusseldorf, because I was changing airlines, I had to collect my baggage, go to check in, and then go through security all over again. I was very worried about missing this next flight because I had a little bit less than an hour to get all of this done before the flight. I think the man at the check in counter just wanted to get me onto the flight, so he didn't seem to care about how overweight my baggage was. Anyway, I just about made it, and then landed in Birmingham at about 9pm. After landing in Beijing and it being 30degrees centigrade, the 12degrees that I was welcomed by in Birmingham wasn't so nice. My parents were already at the airport waiting for me. I was really happy to see them, especially as I had two really heavy suitcases to carry :P I was happy to see them, and happy to get home and be able to relax guilt free, with no feeling that I should really be studying.

I've been home for about two weeks now and I am really missing the life in Japan and the people I met and got to know this year. A few times I've realised that some things I can't do like I could in Japan. For example, I've noticed while cooking, some of the ingredients aren't available and I can't eat things I would have eaten often in restaurants in Japan. Or, when going places, I can't just hop on my bike in the evening to go somewhere, because I don't have a light on my bike. Really I need to go and buy a light, but my bike in Japan just came with a light. Also, it's probably not even safe to be out riding my bike in the dark here. If I can't get to places by bike and it's too far by foot, how do I get there, because the buses in Stourport stop at around 5pm :S ...rant over.. I miss my bike a lot, if I have chance, I could probably write a whole long blog post about it.
I do really miss people I met in Japan as well, especially the people I lived with in Global House. I made a few really good friends there that I want to stay in touch with forever. I'm so glad skype exists!
Although there are things I miss like that, and things that are a bit frustrating. It is nice to be home and to be able to see people that I haven't been able to see all year. ....and since being home, me and Emily found a sushi bar in Birmingham that has a £10 all you can eat sushi buffet conveyor belt. Woktastic in Birmingham! Although I miss 100yen Sushi Ro- in Japan, Woktastic will go a little way towards making up for the lack of Sushi Ro-.

More catch up

Namja Town
Before Christmas, I went with the I-Week japanese speaking group to Namja town. I had already been there before with high school but it was good to go again to see the Gyoza town this time.

Namja town is in Ikebukuro and has different things to do inside. There's Ice Cream City, a Gyoza town, little haunted houses, more dessert areas and a game that was running through the whole amusement park where children could use a device to find the ghosts and play mini games.
The Ice Cream City section had lots of fridges full of unusual flavours like wasabi, eel and garlic. We ate in the gyoza area, where it was just counter after counter selling different types of gyoza.

Kichijoji festivalIn September there was a small festival in Kichijoji, an area of Tokyo near ICU. I didn't manage to catch it all but I saw some performances there.

Midnight walkAt the end of September I went with 3 other global house friends to do the midnight walk with ICU. We started the walk next to Oshiage Station by the Sky Tree tower and walked back to ICU campus. It was a total of around 40km, which was a bit of a shock to be told at the start of the walk. We knew it would be a long way, but we had no idea it was that far. Some people started the walk a little bit late because of an event planned at ICU for the same time, but we wanted to start from the beginning. From the starting point we walked through Asakusa to Ueno, where we had a short break. Next we walked through Akihabara, Nihonbashi, Ginza and Shinbashi and stopped at Tokyo Tower for a short break and ice lollies- it might have been night but it was still humid. Next we passed through Roppongi and Shibuya and had a break in a small park before walking to Shinjuku. When we arrived at Shinjuku, the half way point, about half of the remaining people got the train home. The people that did carry on started breaking up into smaller groups and were following little arrows that had been drawn on the path for us. Some people who carried on started jogging the rest of the way back, even though most people were exhausted already at this point. There wasn't as much to see past Shinjuku because we were leaving the main area of Tokyo and heading towards ICU. Me and Hannah finished the walk at about 9am, so it took us around 12 hours to complete the whole thing. Once we reached ICU, we still had the long path to walk along from the entrance to the sports club house. The road seemed longer than normal because we were so tired, but when we got back they had some tonjiru (miso soup with pork and vegetables) waiting for us. The walk was a good way to see lots of Tokyo at night and I also found it a nice chance to speak Japanese as there weren't many exchange or foreign students on the walk. A couple of my friends from soul run were on the walk so I spent a lot of the first half of the walk walking with them and their friends.
After eating in the sports clubhouse me and Hannah hobbled back to global house (our legs were sore) where we slept until around 5pm.
Unfortunately my camera wasn't working very well in the dark so I couldn't get many pictures, but here are some of them, most of them are from Asakusa:

Jindaiji and Onsen

During the autumn holiday there weren't always many people around my dorm, so one day I decided I'd go for a little explore around the local area. I had a rough idea that there was a temple nearby after reading an article on cnntokyo, so I checked google maps and headed in that general direction. It didn't take long to get to at all from my dorm by bike. At the entrance they had a small market with a foresty kind of area behind it. Amongst the trees there was jindaiji the second oldest temple in Tokyo.

Close by to the temple there is an onsen (hot spring), so this year I went there with a few friends from global house. Being foreign, and not completely used to the whole being naked in public idea, it still felt awkward in the changing room first. It took me a few months to want to try using the shared bath we have at global house. Once you are in though, it's really nice and you just forget about how awkward you thought it would have been before going. They had different types of baths, both inside ones and outside (which you could still use even though it was freezing outside and January) Some of the baths were charcoal, so the water was black. This was a bit odd to start with: if your arm is underwater you can no longer see it, and yet the water still felt like normal water, it didn't feel thick or sticky or anything. It did leave my skin feeling really soft afterwards though :) The bath that I found strangest was an electric bath. I couldn't bring myself to go in this one, because electricity and water are two things that you are always told must be kept separate. One thing about using the bath at my dorm and going to onsen that I still find a little odd, is how you have normal conversations (making eye contact while talking etc) while sitting in a row showering. It feels normal because you forget that you're all just sat there having a shower with other people, but when I think about it, it still seems slightly odd. Either way, I like them, and find it funny that I was too embarrassed to try for so long at the start of term.

Ishinomaki

In the Autumn holiday Shibi and me went up to Ishinomaki, an area hit the eartquake and tsunami in March, to do some volunteering. We joined an organisation called It's Not Just Mud. http://itsnotjustmud.com/ Someone from this group met us as the station and drove us to where the group was staying. In the area around the station the only sign that something so bad had happened were lines on buildings left from the tsunami water. However, as we turned down another street to head towards where we were going to be staying more and more houses and shops were patched up with boards. About 2 minutes into the journey though, and we could really see the damage. There were areas where maybe only one house would be standing (or half standing) with all of its neighbours left in rubble or completely cleared away by volunteers. There must have been miles and miles of neighbourhoods like this one. All along the coast there were miles of piles of waste and rubble that had already been cleared. It was shocking to see just how big of an area had been affected and how seriously, and this was only one of the towns that had been hit.

A school, that although it was still standing, all the rooms were left in ruins

This giant red tin had apparently fallen off the top of a factory nearby and been carried to here by the tsunami