Anyways, onto the blog.
As some of you may know, I had my version of a summer vacation here during the month of August. To celebrate this, I, along with two friends, went traveling. Specifically we visited Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo.
The street we stayed on in Kyoto. It was pretty damn gorgeous.
Because the other two were chronically late risers and could not be convinced to do otherwise, I took to getting up around 7 or 8 and taking myself out for breakfast. Generally I would simply pick a direction and walk, as cafes are plentiful enough in Japan that this was a viable option for food-findage.
This particular place served "Bread with Chocolate," which, when delivered, turned out to be two slices of toast, a saucer full of Hershey's chocolate sauce and a miniature spoon. It was fantastic.
We did manage to do some sight-seeing things as well, once Chase and Cami woke up. In Kyoto we went to some pretty brilliant shrines, got lost a bunch, walked far longer than any of us would have liked in the sun, and bought ridiculously expensive fans. You know. Touristy things.
Shrine gates for daaaaaayyyys. But really there were hundreds of them all the way up the mountain. I was impressed.
Chase graciously modeling my new fan for me. It has bamboo on the front.
And speaking of bamboo, I found a rather large growth of it, so of course I had to hug it.
Also, Cami stole a grapefruit from a shrine, in an area that was off limits to the public (to be fair, we didn't realize that going in). We all felt slightly bad about that, but we ate it anyways. It tasted like adventure.
Then, after a 9 hour overnight bus ride, we finally got to Tokyo. We hostel jumped a lot there, but despite sleeping in 4 separate places during the duration of our stay, we still managed to be in the general neighborhood of Asakusa. This suited me fine, because shortly after arriving at our first lodgings I accidentally befriended the grumpy, 50 year old owner of an English bookshop down the street. I noticed that he had a bag of tin whistles behind the counter and asked to play one, and he was apparently so startled by me, a random 20 year old American girl, being able to play Irish folk songs that it shocked him into friendship. We ended up talking until 5am that night, with occasional breaks for tin whistle or hand drum lessons. This bookshop happened to have a bar in it as well, and I ended up spending quite a few nights drinking with him and the only other regular.
Said other regular had me over several times for lunch, and made some pretty fantastic salads and fish dishes. He also automatically made me tea whenever I visited, which was somewhat wonderful.
In Tokyo I discovered the benefits of traveling alone. As I was spending so many of my nights at the bookshop, I didn't see Cami or Chase as much, but I got to meet some pretty interesting people, make new friends, and hear of stories and adventures that I otherwise never would have been privy to. I really enjoyed it; waking up early for coffee breakfast with a book or some letter paper, going out for lunch with random people from my hostel, and then ending each night at the bookshop, drinking and talking and having fun. I think I'd do well traveling alone, although not for too long. I do start to miss steady companionship after awhile.
A fairly good representative picture Chase took of me on the night my friend Bartosz, along with seemingly half the school, got on a bus to the airport and never came back. This was my "WHY IS EVERYONE LEAVING???" face.
So. That was my vacation. Apologies again for the long wait, I've gotten several emails and messages in the last couple of weeks asking me what the heck I've been up to. I'll write up something on my classes soon, as well as general new-people cataloging (actually, do any of you want to hear about that? Are people observations of interest to you, o viewers of my blog?). Until then, as my new Irish friends keep saying, cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment