Needless to say, ive been busy and cant ever seem to find myself in a position to write when i ramble around the city wandering what in the hell is going on inside the person ive recently come to become friends with(thats me) mainly because shes not being the worlds biggest cu-rumpett anymore. (what sentimental twod) and coming up with some brilliant answers, but they fade as soon i turn a corner you see. stick to the sightseeing shall we?
Tokyo turned into a bastard as soon as siberian winds started smacking us around the face. What happens with the weather here is that once a week on average, the winds come down from russia and turn the place into a living hell hole. No amounts of clothing will protect you and youre left with the psychological trauma of planning on how to survive the next one whilst living through the sunniest warmest winter day you could imagine the day after. It makes completely no sense, this will supposidly get worse as winter goes on. At least it doesnt rain all the time, when it does however, theres a healthy 24 hours of it. And now for the sports news...
I know no sports news, that was a pun. Actually, Alex (la femme american) has been trying to get onto the Aikido team since the beginning of term and after months of talks with the wise masters they are now in the process of forging a contract to which they may terminate her from is she does not learn enough after a 3 month trial period. She has balls, thats all i can say. Id probably have stuck a finger or two up at them by now. Thats my culture shock shining through there.
About a week before it happened, i realised inside of me that Ben was coming to say. That entire week i spent panicing about my lack of ability to really get the best out of my knowledge of the place in which i live. I have, unintentionally, been getting far too excited about the western things that i find here, mainly because i see them as a novelty that i wasnt expecting. Although the doughnuts are something to write home about, ive not yet felt justifiably homesick to warrant a loyalty cards at Mr. Doughnuts and the Haagen-dazs ice-cream parlour. (i may or may not have these things). Still, he was impressed with my terribly broken and sometimes completely made up japanese (i joke) and i think we covered a good chunk of his desires for the short trip. It was fantastic, with moments of terribly hard, to see him. For reasons i attribute to living a dream, i still wasnt jolted into missing home like i thought i would.
Narita airport is further away from Tokyo city than i thought, but i had plenty of time to practice sleeping on the train like a Japanese person:
The hotel we stayed in was on the bad side of my home town, i say bad, i mean Yakusa run and swarming with minions that made me feel like an extra in Old Boy every time i left the building. Even so, ive never felt unsafe in this country, with the exception of trying to use the kitchen out of hours at the dorm. While staying there we explored around some and i found two more department stores hidden in the second largest station in Japan. Thats right, entire department stores.
Saturday we went to Mount Takao with our tutor and the uni gang, it took about 6 hours all rounf to scale it and potter around the four or five temples and countless shrines dotted down the side of it. It was stunning, and the leaves were just starting to turn. Japan is famous for the colour shows in autumn, and it was pretty crouded with Japanese taking pictures with their hugantic cameras. Highlights have to include the dog carried up the hill in a dress to have its anual photo taken with the red leaves, man in silver jump suite and the stunning views of the city on one side and mount Fuji on the other- oh, and the feeling of fulfilling another dream - sharing it all with Ben. FINALLY THE MAN CAME ON HOLIDAY WITH ME. The wood work on the shrines is stunning, and its everywhere, visually it was gobsmacking, physically it was awesome.
Family Photo
Imagine how good HIS pictures must be
We did Harajuku properly on sunday, but the girls obviously dont like to come out in the winter. Never the mind! we had kids day at the shrine to ogle over anyway, i say we, it was mainly me who was steeling photos of the hundreds of small children dressed in traditional attire to be blessed at Meji-Jingu, squeefest. Later we ate at the only Pizza express in Japan, this was purely for novelty value and in honour of all our friends who truly appreciate our history with it. It was quite expensive and all the waiting staff spoke english. It was weird.
When i got show ben the giant Eva statue in the pachinco parlour in Ikebukuro it finally struck him that he was in Japan. We spent the evening trying to cope with it.
The rest of the week was awesome fun, i even managed to get the important classes in. We had one last jaunt to the countryside before he left. Kamakura is stuck between epic forest and the coast, its like hiking up boxhill, trailing your way through beautiful temples and secluded cave shrines and finding yourself on the other side on the beach of west-wittering. Absolutely beautiful place, but nowhere to eat on a budget, Nikuman and hot-can of cocoa it was. We got off the train in Kita-Kamakura, the north height of the town, and went to a large temple there, it cost to get in but the place was huge, pathways and beautiful buildings, ponds, gateways, sacred gardens and Japans larget bell. We had the pleasure of hearing chanting coming from a closed of complex inside and the entrance to a school of zen inside the temple read "please step lightly enter with peaceful tranquility ". We walked from there up and down a twisted hill to a cave shrine in which people washed their money to triple it in worth. Its worth mentioning to some of you guys that the tristar is tattooed everywhere in these places, it is infact, a real buddhist symbol, representing the three attributed of your life you need to perfect to achieve zen: Your relationship with the gods, your relationship with your environment, and your relationship with other people. Exhausted from that we went out and partied all night until it was time to oversleep and nearly miss Bens flight home.
And now im just about recovered from a little void that stopped me from living like i did before he came, but wouldnt let me see him and pretend like i was infact at home. Its about time to push the boundries i had created around my life here and launch full tilt into sucking in as much as i can, not like theres any use in dwelling on the negative is there? Its only gratuitous time wasting. Next weekend, were going on a long weekend trip to a traditional Japanese inn and experiencing the thrills of an Onsen: japanese spring baths, naked. Joy of joys.
Dont forget kids, if you dont want to hear any of this disjointed ramblings, there are videos on Youtube and pictures on Facebook to enjoy. Anyway, goodnight, im going to get some rest and curl up and feed my new obsession with americas next top model. Dont judge, im going through a lot right now. :)
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