Once I caught wind of the mercenaries being hired to teach me precisely how displeased some of you guys get when I go a month without updating, I decided this had gone on far enough. I really am sorry though; I don’t know who my teachers think they are, making me work hard.  I mean, all my finals added up this semester are still a fraction of a percent as difficult as one of my typical Physics classes, but I still had to do… stuff. 

Let’s see, where to start up again… Whale sharks, AIDS-bearing death fish, or how I made friends with upwards of 40 middle-aged Japanese men while naked…

Let’s go with AIDS-bearing death fish, shall we? So, around the beginning of May I had the chance to go to Spa World, which is a 6 floor building filled with nothing but baths, with different themes for each floor.  However, as in all public Japanese baths, no clothes allowed. Nothing.  There are different floors for men and women, as well as a co-ed floor if you’re really that confident that your body is built like a Greek god.  On one of the floors however, before you’re required to doff clothing, are a whole bunch of different activities you can take part in.  One of them is called Doctor Fish, and the general idea is that you huck your foot in a pool full of tons of these tiny little fish, which promptly feast on all the dead skin on your feet, so that by the time you’re done, your feet have reverted to baby-like softness.  Apparently these fish are illegal in America because they can potentially carry AIDS, but I figured, hey, that sounds like a challenge.  

Oh yeah, on the way into the spa building, we encountered two older gentlemen and their family of guinea pigs. I inquired why they had the guinea pigs with them, and they told me they were taking them for a walk. I don’t know how that was accomplished when the guinea pigs had to be carried from place to place, but what do I know about guinea pigs anyway? So this is me playing with one of them, which, according to the dude, is pregnant with a batch o’ guinea piglets.  

Who know that having fish chomp away at your dead skin is the best way to maintain youthful foot appearance?

     See, the thing they fail to tell you about these Doctor Fish before you jam your foot into their face is that this process is going to tickle. A lot.  See, if you’re a normal human being, you’ll probably just giggle from time to time. But if you’re me, all someone has to do is look at you funny and make tickly-hand gestures while giggling to cause an eruption of disruptive laughter. And that’s exactly what happened. I made quite the scene, attracting stares from all the Japanese people walking by as I cackled with boyish laughter and yelled at the fish to stop.  I don’t know how I survived 10 minutes of it, but afterwards I felt the uncontrollable urge to run up to passersby, shove my foot in their face, and make them admit that my feet were better than theirs.  My companions restrained me, but the urge still lingered for some time.  

     Next, it was time to enter the tubs.  I bid farewell to my female companions and headed alone to the male bath floor.  At first I thought that I could be subtle and quiet, attracting little to no unwanted attention, but as pretty much the only white person there, my pasty flesh attracted eyes like wasps to the top of open pop cans.  You all know what I mean. (I mean, you see a wasp go into your can while you’re playing Frisbee or something, and then when you want a drink, you don’t know if it’s still in there or not, or if you even want to drink it anymore at all…Uchth.) 

Anyway, once I realized I wasn’t going to escape unnoticed, I decided it would simply be best to adopt a confident stride and pretend getting naked with hordes of Japanese guys was a normal activity for me.  There were tons of baths to choose from, ranging from scalding hot to freezing cold, and I sampled my fair share of them.  The best were definitely the traditional hot springs outside; the weather was perfect, with a nice cool breeze soothing your upper half while your lower bits were submerged in the water.  At first no one talked to me, but after a little bit an older gentlemen entered the same hot spring and started talking to me.  Up until that point, besides their stares, I had largely been ignored by everyone.  However, as the conversation with this fellow drew on, I slowly attracted more and more attention as they saw that I was able to speak somewhat intelligible Japanese.  From that point on, more and more people got involved in the conversation, until the bath I was in was so full of people no one could even move.  That made things a little bit uncomfortable, and the mental stress of handling so many conversations in Japanese at that pace started to make my head spin.  I made my polite apologies and decided to seek the solitude of an inside bath, but to no avail.  Wherever I went, I was followed by nude Japanese men, eager to talk to a foreigner.  The best way to picture this is to imagine the opening scene from Austin Powers where he’s naked and being chased by hordes of women, but instead of women, it was a whole bunch of middle aged Japanese guys.  I think you’ve got the idea.

Alright, tune in next time for manta rays, penguins, and whale sharks, oh my! (All complaints regarding the lameness of this last sentence should be directed to my father, as he is responsible for my complete inability to mention three animals in a row without a Wizard of Oz reference.)

Until then, Welcome...

Foppish: "Excessively refined and fastidious in taste and manner; resembling or befitting a fop."

Never thought I'd come to Japan and learn new English from the side of a photo booth.

Greetings, Andrew-Fans! Do you guys feel guilty about making me slog away at a keyboard like some cave-dwelling nerd-beast on this gorgeous spring day? It truly is a testament to my overwhelming devotion to all of you that I’m slaving away at this blog right now. (Okay, so the weather isn’t actually that nice, and in reality it’s about 11:30PM, but I thought blaming you guys would make me feel a little less guilty myself about not updating sooner. Play along.)

The goal for today is to make it through as much of my Tokyo trip as possible, because that was a couple weeks ago now and I’m getting way too far behind again.  I blame… Ava. Is that still the cool thing to do? I imagine that, at least, can’t have changed in my absence.

Sooo… yeah. Shibuya.  I had really been looking forward to making it to Shibuya, because that was, to me, the heart of Tokyo. It’s what I had always pictured when I thought of Tokyo, and I was anxious to visit the famous Scramble Crossing.  

Y’know that feeling you get when you’re staring down a stubbornness of rhinoceroses about to stampede ? Yeah, this kinda felt like that. Except the rhinos are all texting and paying next to no attention to where they’re going.

That gives you a ROUGH idea what it’s like to be in the middle of things, but doesn’t really do it justice.  I did my best to stand still, but I was still kind of buffeted along like a raft at sea. But the sea is full of texting rhinos, remember. I never claimed my analogies made sense.

Next, it was my mission to find the statue of Hachiko; the famous dog who waited at the Shibuya station every day for 9 years for his dead master to return before finally dying himself.  I’ve always loved this story, and no trip to Shibuya would be complete without finding the statue and, as a faithful tourist, photographing the every-loving slobber out of it.  I had been talking about the statue incessantly all morning, and my companions were probably about ready to leave ME behind at the train station, but we finally found it.  It’s not that it was placed in an obscure location or anything (in fact it was directly in front of the train station exit), but it was so obscured by so many people that we probably walked right by it 7 or 8 times before discovering it.  After constantly hounding (*Swish*) them all morning, I think I raised my friends’ expectations about the statue, as they seemed a tad disappointed by it, but I was just as impressed as I expected I’d be. (Picture Weird Al at the beginning of UHF when he and Terry go to U62 for the first time.  If you HAVEN’T seen UHF, then I don’t know why you think you have spare time to read my blog when tasks as important as seeing UHF remain unfulfilled.)

Searching doggedly paid off! (I’m so sorry guys, I really am.)

The rest of the day was spent shopping around Shibuya.  I didn’t buy anything, as it was mostly clothing stores and things like that, but I have to say that, if it exists, it can almost certainly be found available for purchase in Shibuya. 

The next day was definitely one of my personal highlights, as we went to Akihabara, the place I had been looking forward to the most the entire trip.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Akihabara’s reputation… I don’t know exactly how to communicate it effectively to you. It’s a place where this is an unremarkable and almost typical manner of dress:

It’s basically nerd paradise. DenDenTown, or Electric Town, is a huge conglomeration of electronics, manga, card game, collectibles, toy stores and arcades all bunched together.  Which kind of explains why I’d been looking forward to it so much. 

That woman’s not sleepy; her eyes have actually just fallen out from playing video games at the arcade for hours on end. True story.

Upon arrival, we spent some time at one of the arcades, until we decided it was time to find some food.  Akihabara is infamous for its “Maid Cafes,” where all the girls are garbed in maid outfits, refer to each and every male customer as “shujin-sama” (honorable master husband) and dote on customers’ every need.  I thought it sounded a little weird at first, but ended up going along with everyone.  Despite the steep price, (1000 yen to get in, minimum of 2 orders, minimum order price 500 yen) I actually had more fun than I expected.  The maids’ exuberance is infectious, and it’s difficult not to smile every time they spontaneously break into the “Delicious Charm” chant that they sing about each new dish that they serve in order to make it more delicious. Anywhere I can eat something that looks like this, I’m gonna be a fairly happy camper:

Except that I felt I was taking the life of an innocent by consuming it.

I think it’s best if I head to bed for now, but I honestly do intend to try to get the next post up sooner than I have been of late.  If I don’t, feel free to send all complaints about my tardiness to my secretary, who can be reached at avabroscoff@gmail.com. Until next time!

After my extensive hiatus, I would not be surprised to find that any semblance of a readership I had managed to accumulate since the beginning of this blog has moved on to more regular, consistent publications.  I can scarcely blame anyone for this, as I imagine it’s kind of an unspoken requirement that bloggers actually, y’know, BLOG more than once a decade.  For my severe tardiness, I can only offer my apologies and following picture of a kitten in a cup:

If you're still mad at me after viewing this, you're not human.

Seriously though, those of you that moved on probably had the right idea.  Recently I've discovered that both my written and spoken English have deteriorated to the point of near unintelligibility (evidenced clearly by the fact that I just made up the word unintelligibility.) I’ve realized that, when thinking, my thoughts now take the form of some strange and frightening amalgamation of Japanese and English, frequently punctuated by guttural grunts and onomatopoeic sounds that only make sense to me.   When I get back to the States, I’m sure I’m going to have to go through the same English rehabilitation program attended by Sylvester Stallone and Ozzy.

But I suppose you guys don’t really want to hear about that. You probably want to hear about, y’know, actual stuff.  As a dear Austrian nun-turned nanny-turned-family band leader once told me, the beginning is a very good place to start.  I’ll take her advice for the moment, but being the rebel and nonconformist that I am, afterwards I think I’m going to hop to the middle for a bit, back to the beginning, then bits of the end, then the late middle, flashback to the beginning, and then the actual end.  I attended the Christopher Nolan school of story construction, after all.

Although the fastest and coolest way to Tokyo would have been by bullet train, tickets for that are absurdly expensive, and I have better things to spend my money on.  Like Magic cards, video games, and a big ol’ box of Pikachu shaped chocolates.  Don’t judge me.  Anyway, that’s why my group chose to take the night bus, which was significantly cheaper.  Although I wish I could talk about how, since its Japan, we rode a Cat Bus all the way to Tokyo and had a fantastic and magical journey, that unfortunately was not the case.  No, if anything this was really more of a Dog Bus.  I mean we’ve all heard that “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” And it was definitely too dark to read on the bus. (To the three of you who got the reference, give yourselves a pat on the back. I mean that literally. No one ever actually gives themselves a pat on the back, and I’m sick of it.)

Soo…. Yeah. Night bus.  Really cramped.  My legs were screaming in agony the entire time because there was absolutely no space to put them, so I contorted myself into some strange position that probably was the single cause of my moderately unpleasant neck pain the entire trip, and crammed my legs in between me and the seat in front of me. This was excruciating at first, but soon the restricted blood flow to my legs caused them to go numb, and then I was able to maintain that position indefinitely. 

Typical Japanese couple. Or something like that.

The bus departed at about 11:40PM from Kyoto Station and arrived at Tokyo Station around 6:15AM the following morning.  My pals and I wandered around Tokyo station in a state of some deliria for some indeterminate amount of time, and looking back, I’m surprised that, what with my dull, leaden eyes, slackened jaw, pale complexion, and lurching movement pattern, I wasn’t mistaken for a zombie and subsequently kneecapped.  Lucky me!

I’ll fastforward a bit past the boring process of finding our hostel, because I realize now that if I kept up the current pace, I’d make it through the events of the first day in Tokyo sometime around November. 

Alright, so the first sight-seeing place on the itinerary was a Meiji shrine whose name I can’t quite remember.

 It may have just been Meiji shrine.  Iunno.  I didn’t find anything particularly impressive about the shrine itself (I’m probably spoiled by the wealth of super-special-awesome shrines in Kyoto), but was remarkable about the trip was that we happened to be in time to witness and old fashioned Japanese wedding ceremony. Typically only fairly wealthy and important people still have weddings like this, so it was kind of a special deal. Observe:

Whole bunch o' wine barrels. Not for the wedding, just there because.

After spending a little bit more time observing the wedding, we decided to head to Harajuku explore the area.  There were quite a few interesting stores scattered about, and there also seemed to be some sort of protest going on. I’m not completely certain how to embed videos, but here’s one I took of the protest:

Boosh! See that vehicle get nailed by the bus at the end? Had I recorded longer, you would have seen no expressions of frustration or anger expressed by either of the drivers.  Neither gave any indication whatsoever that anything remotely unpleasant had transpired. Why? Because Japan.

The highlight of the trip to Harajuku was when I got “discovered.” Yep, that’s right. There I was, typical, mild mannered Andrew, and a fellow came up off the street, told me I was really cool-looking, and asked whether or not I wanted to become a model. I was a little bit wary, and not quite sure how to respond, so I just explained to him that I wasn’t from Tokyo, merely visiting, and wouldn’t be able to contact him later.  As if my ego really needed any more flattery, 15 minutes later another guy from a different company approached me and told me much the same thing.  This time, though, I was a little bit more prepared.  I was still wary, and didn’t want to be pestered by anyone, so I gave him a fake email address and name, but took his card in case I wanted to contact him. He’ll be rather disappointed when he tries to contact Bruce Wayne at bwayne69@yahoo.com! In hindsight though, this deception was probably the right idea. Glancing over his business card now, I don’t think I’d want any part of a company called “Little Friends Management.”

Alright, that’s all I have time for today, but I’ll follow up as soon as possible with the following days trip to Shibuya! In the meantime, please mull over the following:

 I feel obligated to apologize for the tardiness of this post.  Last week I had 2 tests and 3 quizzes to contend with, and although that’s roughly .000014% of my daily Physics workload last semester, it somehow still managed to eat up a good portion of my time.

Alright, now let’s see if I can figure out where exactly I left off, and what the best strategy is for ACTUALLY getting you guys up to speed with my life. I suppose I can no longer delay some form of exposition regarding my daily life, even though I feel like that’s significantly less entertaining than the grandiose tales of sightseeing and adventure I’ve regaled you with so far.  Know what I mean? It’s like the obligatory middle boring stuff that you have to wade through to find the gems of amusement.  In other words, it’s like every part Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones that ISN’T a lightsaber fight. (BA-dunch!)

I think I’ll start off by mindlessly hurling some of the pictures up that I took of my room after several weeks of Mom’s demands.  Although, these were the last pictures taken by her camera before it inexplicably descended into some strange limbo dimension where it refuses to turn on but continues to make noises after I’ve attempted to turn it off. Y’know, those errhh-rrchhH-EERRCH noises that cameras make from time to time when the lens doesn’t know what the crap it’s supposed to be doing, and instead contents itself with sounding like a broken wind-up toy.

My goal is to leave this room with more bears than it started with.

Ahh, what better way to sleep at night than content with the knowledge that Ol’ Pooh is ever vigilant, protecting me from all manner of yokai, tengu, and tanuki. 

My personal favorite feature of the room. (Oh, and that robe-lookin thing that I’m wearing over my clothes is called a hanken. It’s what Japanese people wear about the house so they can justify keeping it as close to absolute zero as possible. My okaasan MADE it for me!)

The location where I spend the regrettable 5 or so hours a day that I can’t be DOING things.  Still comfy though. Oh, and there’s an electric blanket that has proved greatly beneficial to my survival as well.  (Except that I wake up every morning and for a brief second think I’ve urinated all over myself because my legs sweat so much. Sorry if that grossed you out or anything, but if it did… you’re reading the wrong blog.)

Clearly the most thrilling part of the room.  Nice up-to-date globe in the corner too! (Prussia is still a country, right guys? :P)

 Where I am currently sitting.  It took a second glance at this photo to make me realize that the yellow dog beast next to albino Pooh appears to be saluting me.  I approve, dog beast.  I approve.

Okay, now that that’s taken care of, I’m going to try to speed you through some more entertaining events.  I’m gonna up the pace a little bit in the interest of actually getting you guys up to date, which means more pictures and less words. Bear with me!

Went out for sushi with some folks last Friday.  Wait, crap, I think that was actually two weeks ago.  In any case, sushi happened, and it was on a Friday.

Automatic tea dispensers and disembodied hands at every table!

Daisuke and Brett, the former seemingly waiting for sushi to appear in his mouth of its own accord.

Don’t like raw fish? That’s fine, you can have BACON SUSHI instead.  

The whole gang.  By the way, the guy at the table across from us had a pile of plates greater than all of ours combined. Some people really chow down.

The following day I made my second sojourn to Osaka.  The early part of the day was spent in an amazing used book, manga, game and movie store.  I, however, was not about to go home without first visiting the Pokemon Center in Umeda.  Getting there was a bit of an adventure, but I took plenty of photographic evidence to document.

Upon arrival at the Pokemon Center, we found it absolutely PACKED. There were probably upwards of 400 people filling every nook and cranny of the store.  We had apparently arrived on some special day where they were giving out these free keychains (which believe it or not actually looked really cool) but the line for them did not seem to have any discernible end. I would have liked to get one to prove I was there on that day, but decided it wasn’t worth waiting so long that afterwards I’d probably head directly to a nursing home.

An inevitable fixture of my future home.

Unfortunately I’m blocking your view of an elderly woman playing Pokemon on 2 DS systems simultaneously.  She was probably the coolest person there, except for perhaps the mother with one child clutching her coat, one toddler held in the crook of her arm, and the lot of them playing Pokemon on 3 separate DSs with their spare hands.  If only I had had the gumption to blatantly and unabashedly take a picture.

And, of course, no sightseeing trip would be complete without some weird Japanese signs.

Who doesn’t love here?

So there you have it.  I won’t lie to you and tell you you’re up to date, but I think some amount of time lag is necessary for me to get my thoughts in order anyway.  I had to skip some events too, but like I said before, this just gives you more incentive to talk to me after I get back.  I’ll now leave you with this…

Whatever it actually is, I’m regretting my decision NOT to purchase it.

I will, in this span of this update, try to fast track all of you to somewhat recent events. And by recent events I mean make it past my first weekend in Japan, because that’s still where you’re all sitting right now. To make this possible I’ll inevitably have to skip some goings-on, but it had to happen sometime, and now this just gives you more incentive to talk to me after I get back to get the rest of the details, eh?

So, I will now commence with my first (and only so far, although that’s looking to change on Saturday) trip to Osaka.  At about 1:30 on Saturday afternoon it was decided that Osaka was the place to be, and as Gauthier was looking to purchase a new camera anyway, we had all the excuses we needed.  With Rina acting as our guide, the three of us set off. After a brief train ride (not quite as cushy as the trip to Kyoto, I quickly noted, but still comfortable) we arrived at Shinsaibashi.  I had thought Kyoto was crowded, but that was nothing compared to the throng I was faced with upon exiting the station.  Rina led on to a long street crammed with stores, and it was then that I was really astounded. I felt like I was both outside and in a mall at the same time.  There was some sort of canopy overhead obscuring the sky, lights of all colors and intensities decorated every square inch of… everything, and the place seemed warmer than outside.  This last point is probably just explained by the amount of warm bodies crammed into the smaller space, but I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to put things together at the time. As I gazed down the street/elongated plaza/strip thing, I felt like I was looking at one of those optical illusions. Squint as I might, I couldn’t make out any visible end, just vaulted arches parading endlessly down as far as I could see.  After walking for a few minutes, I had almost convinced myself I was in a mall… until I almost ran directly into a car that was passing in front of me perpendicular to the street that I was on. And by passing, I mean inching forward at speeds easily eclipsed by the rate of toenail growth as people slowly made way for it.  The rest of the afternoon blurred by; I don’t remember many specific activities besides window shopping at more stores than I could conceivably list, and eating a deliciously fluffy strawberry-y pastry of some kind that I have no memory of purchasing.  At some point in the early evening, the three of us met Brett and Marissa, who had come to Osaka separately.  They reminded me that I hadn’t actually eaten anything substantial all day, and that perhaps I should consider spending some money on sustaining my body’s life processes through the ingestion of nutrition.  I now yield my explanation to pictures.

Definitely the least crowded area we saw all day, evidenced by the fact that cars could actually, y’know, move.

This man is happy because he was able to squeeze into that leotard. 

This picture looked normal to me until my gaze became fixated on my fingers.  The longer you look at them, the bigger they seem.  See what I mean?

And this picture is apparently so important that Google refuses to allow me to include a single copy of it. If I try to delete one of them, it actually just erases every picture I've uploaded so far. So it looks like you get two.

After some brief picture taking on the Shinsaibashi bridge, we went in search of food.  We found a nice restaurant that offered okanomiyaki, which is best described as Japanese pancakes. So, y’know, full of fish. Being the cheapskate I am though (heaven forbid I spend more than $5 on a meal…) Rina and I split an order of takoyaki, shown below.

They’re like dumplings. But, because this is Japan, they’re stuffed with partially cooked octopus and some sort of gooey, mushy something. Tasted good though! Oh, and do you see that exotic, Japanese sauce on top? Just lathering everything in creamy goodness and probably tasting like nothing you’ve ever had before? YEAH, THAT’S MAYONNAISE. Japan bathes EVERYTHING in mayonnaise. I would not be surprised to go to a restaurant and see some fellow guzzling the stuff down by the glass. 

Now it’s time for the unflattering pictures of everyone eating! No one is spared! Except for me! (Y’know why? Cuz I had my tray table up, and my… nevermind.)

Marissa looking happy, Brett seemingly attempting to elongate his chin.

Gauthier eating and probably lamenting at the lack of French bread, as is his mealtime tradition.

After explaining to Rina that she didn’t need to smile and do “posu” for every picture, and that I was trying to get CANDID photos, she goes and falls asleep mid-meal. The nerve!

After dinner, we continued exploring Osaka, and I managed to find my first exotic brand of KitKat.  For those not in-the-know (which here means everyone but Ava, I’d guess) Japan has TONS of flavors of KitKats, ranging from normal things like fruit to some rather strange variations like mashed potato. In any case, I found Green Tea KitKats, which look delicious but rate fairly low on the weirdness scale in my estimation. I’ll redouble my efforts though!

Fairly typical Osaka street.

Well, I hate to say it, but I don’t think I have the gumption to get into daily life and transition you all into the present. I kind of like you guys in the past, right where I’ve got you.  So I guess that means I failed this update’s single objective.  I thought at first that that would sting, but oddly enough I feel no remorse whatsoever. Perhaps I’ve just grown accustomed to failure after a couple years of Physics beating Nick and Derek and I into the ground, huh? In any case, seriously, I think I can you guys caught up next time.  Either that or I’ll just keep stringing you along, depending on how I feel.  You guys are a fickle audience, y’know that? Either I delay this post even longer in order to add more, or I leave you with the hollow feeling of dissatisfaction eating away inside you because of my unfulfilled promise.  And after going on for over 150 words now on why, precisely, I’m NOT going to keep writing, I think that’s my queue that it’s actually just time for bed. Later, folks!

In the meantime...

I hope you guys are all enjoying car life!

Because it seems that everyone is just CLAMORING for another update, I suppose I can oblige.  When I’m home I usually get the impression that everyone just wants me to stop talking, but as soon as I leave, it seems you all just can’t get enough of ol’ Andrew.

As I recall, I left off you all hanging with the promise that I would soon discuss my first trips to Kyoto and Osaka. I’m actually really tempted to blow you all off and discuss the current market share of the 3DS and software sales trends, as well as the results of the latest Magic Pro Tour, but as I always say, my word is my bond.

On Friday morning of my first week in Japan, the university scheduled a Kyoto tour in which a group of us foreigners would be matched with an equal sized group of Japanese students. We were all told to wait patiently while this process was being organized.  However, being the ambitious and overzealous youngsters that we are, my friends and I set about finding our own group of Japanese students, with precedence given, of course, to the ones that looked the coolest. Surely the best paradigm on which to base the decision of a tour guide, right? In any case, our search ended quickly when our eyes alighted on a Japanese fellow sporting an orange Mohawk, hereafter known as Mohawk-san.  (I feel that Ava, at least, should support our choice based on this fact alone.) Mohawk-san and his posse agreed to go with us, and so our merry crew of 3 Americans, 3 French, and 6 Japanese set out for the train station.  This group was perfect, as we all fell in line and started up conversations with our new friends.  It took all of 5 minutes to realize that they were incredibly helpful, earnest in helping us learn about Japanese language and culture, and eager to hear about our lives and countries as well. 

My first use of the Japanese train system could not have gone more smoothly. From arrival at the station to stepping onto the train took roughly 5 minutes, and the ticket from Hirakata-shi to Kyoto was roughly $3 USD.  The train itself was incredibly comfortable, with large windows providing a view of the country as we sped by and surprisingly plush seats to support my heiny.  Given that the trip only took about 30 minutes total, this wasn’t even that necessary, but I imagine for long trips these seats are soft enough to sooth even the tenderest rump.

I was also surprised at how clean everything was. One would be hard pressed to find a single empty water bottle, candy package or gum wrapper carelessly tossed aside.  The cleanliness of the station made me realize how spotless Japan is in general.  I honestly don’t think I’ve seen a piece of litter yet. (I actually asked Rina about this, and why exactly Japan was so clean. Did Japan have lots of full time trash picker uppers? High-tech robot slaves? A squadron of trash-eating goats released every night? She seemed bewildered at the question though, and after thinking for a while, slowly said… “Well… sometimes people drop things, I guess.  But then they pick them up.” Even the concept of purposefully littering because of laziness seemed foreign to her.)

After arriving in Kyoto, we made our way through the throng of people to Kiyomizu-dera, which is an enormous temple seemingly located in the heart of Kyoto. It only took me about an hour to fall in love with this city, which surprised me given my usual dislike of hordes of people stampeding about.  Kyoto was so unique though; it managed to somehow seamlessly blend the traditional with the contemporary.  One minute I was surrounded by people, cars, and noise, and the next I was in what seemed to be an isolated area with steps leading up to a compound of ancient-looking wooden buildings.  As it turns out, this temple is actually still in use by monks, but open to tourists and visitors as well.  I’ll shut up now and let some pictures do the talking.

Aforementioned stairs complete with aforementioned French girls.

The whole gang, minus Charline, who was relegated to camera duty.

From left to right

Back Row: Brett, Mohawk-San, Andrew “Ace of Spades” Broscoff, guy who’s name I can’t remember but reminded me of someone from Death Note, Kei.

Front Row: Yuuya, Mai, Daisuke (kneeling) Marissa, Alix, Gauthier

An absolutely ENORMOUS graveyard. When I inquired about how bodies were laid to rest, I was told (if I understood correctly) that the bodies are cremated but the remaining bones are placed inside these stone doodads.

Lotsa stone doodads. Enough stone doodads to choke a camel, I reckon.

More Pictures of us, because that's what you're really here to see anyway.

Behold, the big orange thing.

You know you're in Japan when an enormous Totoro greets you at the entrance to a store.

Oh yeah, and when you can buy a Totoro outfit for your child.  Unfortunately they don't come any bigger.

Someday I'll come back for you, Catbus Hat.

While at the temple, we took part in several activities.  The first involved descending into some pitch black location and gripping onto a rope as your only guide to make it through. I think it actually may have been the darkest place I’ve ever been. I was terrified that I would drop something and never see it again. In any case, I believe the whole trip was supposed to symbolize a journey into the womb of Buddha’s mother or something, with the aforementioned rope representing Buddha’s umbilical cord.  When you reached deep inside there was a large, dimly illuminated rock that one was supposed to place their hand on and make a wish.  If this was representing Fetus Buddha, I hope I didn’t offend anyone by sneezing on it. Maybe I’m allergic to uteruses (uteri?). Meh, it was so dark in there no one could tell it was me anyway. (And based on the dampness of the rock, I’m forced to conclude that lots of previous visitors sneezed on Fetus Buddha as well.)

Following our journey to the center of the womb, we emerged in an area where three small streams of water cascade down from above, and each one symbolizes… something that I can’t remember.  Love, wisdom, and luck or something like that. Anyway, using a cup attached to a long pole, you’re supposed to collect water from each stream and then drink from it.  The thing is, there’s only like 10 cup/pole combinations, and everyone takes turns using them.  I was astonished at first. “This is so unlike Japan!” I thought in that adorably naïve way that I often do. The Japanese think shoes in any location other than the entryway is disgusting, and heaven forbid you ever walk into the bathroom with your normal slippers on; there’s special bathroom slippers for that! Upon further inspection, however, I saw that there was some sort of Ultra-Violet Sterilization Machine from the future that everyone set their cups in after they’d used them.  Once again, a small, anecdotal example of how Kyoto combines the archaic with the modern.

After quenching our thirst with the Super Water, it was time to try a series of green-tea based candies. Unfortunately I didn’t think to take any pictures of these, but that’s probably for the best. They don’t look like anything special, and I doubt most people could imagine a green-tea based candy being anything but gut-wrenchingly awful, but they were AMAZING.  If I go back again I’ll definitely buy some to bring back home.

The only downside to these candies was that they served as a reminder of how hungry we were.  After taking a leisurely walk down the hill that the temple was located on and browsing the countless stores that lined the steps, it was time to make our way to the restaurant.  Our Japanese guides highly recommended it, and for good reason, as the food was marvelous.  Typically, from what I’ve experienced, the way Japanese restaurants work is very different from American restaurants.  You don’t just order what you want to eat, but instead your entire table orders a wide variety of appetizer-sized mini-meals that everyone shares.  I love this idea, as it’s a great way to try new things, but the only downside is that when it comes time to pay, everyone just splits it.  So regardless of how much you ate, personally, you’re still going to be responsible for a significant fraction of the bill.  Lesson learned. 

I sat at a table with three of our Japanese guides, and at first I was intimidated, because I was the only one from our group without a fellow English speaker at the table.  By the end of the meal, however, I was very grateful; we had a series of very interesting conversations, and the situation pushed me to use more Japanese than I would have otherwise.

Following dinner, it was time for the quintessential Japanese activity of purikura.  You may not know it by name, but you’ve no doubt seen it.  Purikura are those photobooths where everyone piles in and has tons of pictures taken, after which the girls all crowd around the screen and edit the pictures however they wish.  This results in the following inevitable transformations.

Guys----à Girls

Girls---àSuper models

I also greatly enjoyed the sign plastered on the side of the machine:

This was fun, but the real highlight came when I spotted the Pikachu costumes.

You REALLY know you’re in Japan when you can do this without getting so much as a second glance from anyone.

Oh, so about that pose. Japanese people don’t even know why they do it. I’ve asked probably going on 10 of em now, and they can’t give me a real answer.  They just smile and say “posu” as if that explains everything. Well, it doesn’t Japan, it really doesn’t.  But that doesn’t mean I won’t play along.

I was going to try to cover the following day’s trip to Osaka as well, but seeing as this post has already eclipsed 1700 words and it’s getting close to 2AM as I type this, I think it’s time I think about heading to bed. Hopefully this will give you all enough to chew on till I can continue!