http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , Japan en-us Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:43:15 BST Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:43:15 BST So the weekend was very restful. Friday I went with Hunter Phillip Akemi and Yuka to Takaaki's place one of my EC students and we hung out there for awhile. It was a lot of fun. Today we had our second week of EC. My first group went SOOOOOO much better than last week. I was missing one girl so there was only 3 of us but they wanted to learn the song Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer an http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Ibaraki/Mito/blog-331330.html My host father is a Yomiyuri Giants fanatic. Every night he watches them religiously and I've been joining him because the Yankees haven't been in an exciting race for a month and are now sitting on a beach and playing golf. The Giants on the other hand are .5 game behind the Hanshin Tigers for a playoff spot with four games to go. Now that's baseball. We went to the game today and it was grea http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/blog-331048.html Took a ride to Akihabara. It's the famous electronics district of Tokyo that spring up PostWWII as an area where entrepreneurs began selling old radio parts to try to scratch out a living when Japan was bombed into a parking lot. Now its electronics to the nth degree. Computers laptops of every size cell phones accessories rice cookers wires transistors screens electronic tools light http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Tokyo/Akihabara/blog-330888.html Backpackers carried packs on their backs. They traveled the world and followed the aromas of banana pancakes dreams of remoteness and the Lonely Planet's recommendations. Of this we all agreeThese days the Flashpackers roam the earth. Decked with electronic gear and assorted power chargers internal flight bookings and reservations at hidden sparesorts. They have a different outlook to th http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Tokyo/Ueno/blog-330763.html For an hour and a half I walked through the outskirts of Takamatsu to the plingplingpling of railway crossings with their barriers down and passed pachinko parlours schools and heaps of rubbish waiting to be collected and stinking the streets out meanwhile. I was heading for the Yashima plateau the mini Table Mountain I'd been seeing from my Takamatsu hotel room and trying to ignore. Tem http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/Shimonoseki/blog-330747.html freitag 03.10.08am montag bereits am morgen im bett hre ich den regen draussen sch.... denn genau an diesem montag fahre ich mit dem zug nach koyasan gemss schriftlichem und mndlichem reisefhrer eine superschne strecke im regen. na ja so schlimm war es gar nicht vor allem der letzte teil von hashimoto ber gokurakubashi nach koyasan ist wirklich wundervoll zuerst ein schmalspurb http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Wakayama/Koyasan/blog-330738.html Sitting here in Kyoto Station... got about 30 minutes before the Shinkansen leaves for Kobe. Spent the night in a small little business hotel downtown here got to check out some of the night life here in Kyoto. I went down an area of the city I forgot about... the Poncho District an even better area to potentially spot the elusive Geishas. Paid off too I saw a definite real one escorting a c http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kyoto/blog-330692.html One of the best parts about living in Japan is that I can eat Japanese food everyday and not feel like Irsquom destroying my wallet or trying to impress a girl on a date. While the food remains ldquoexoticrdquo itrsquos certainly not as ldquosexyrdquo as it is in the US. And with a dearth of ldquoethnicrdquo restaurants around itrsquos clear that eating in Japan cannot be cal http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kagawa/Kotohira/blog-330580.html 31008Hello all Long time no blog.Well it is now about the 4th week of uni and Irsquom slowly approaching midsemester exams jumping for joy herehellipno theyrsquore not too bad. Nothing majorly exciting has happened here but there have been lots of random little thingshellipFirst of all Irsquove passed the one month mark YaySecondly I experienced my first earthquake. Tom said http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Aichi/Nagoya/blog-330398.html Decided to take a day trip out to Nara. When we got off the train one of the first things we saw was the sega world arcade. This was the best arcade I've been in. It had loads of sega arcades and a mario kart arcade. Also the grabby machines had Wii products you could win.A bit further along the street was a big pond Sarusawa pond that was full of turtlesterapins there was also Japans second t http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-330361.html sonntag 28.09.08nach der ersten japanischen erkundungstour im nchtlichen kyoto am mittwoch abend und der ersten nacht im 6bettzimmer im k's house kyoto beginnt am donnerstag morgen das sight seeing in kyoto. auf dem programm steht als einstieg der vom lonely planet vorgeschlagene spaziergang entlang den diversen tempeln...zuerst muss ich mich aber mit kartenmaterial von kyoto eindecken und die http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-330352.html Today we took advantage of the sunny weather and hired a bike out for the day. First we cycled to the silver pavilion Ginkakuji temple the building wasn't silver but the gravel was sort of and was raked quite posh pictures don't do it justice. Unfortanately maintanance was on so we were unable to enter the main hall. After a picnic by the river we headed of to Kyoto's prefectual botanical par http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-330349.html So yesterday Hunter Yuka Akemi and I went downtown and got our alien registration cards well Hunter and I got ours the other two don't need them. Everyone was saying that they had to wait forever at City Hall but we went in handed our papers in and after like 2 min we got our cards. Then the 4 of us went to soft bank. We were there for almost 3 hrs but Hunter and I are now the only peopl http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Ibaraki/Mito/blog-330272.html I'm currently on my final night here on Shikoku Island. I ended the day soaking in the very renowned hot spring onsen DogoOnsen. This is the oldest one in Japan about 3000 years old. The structure now was recently built but it's done in the traditional style very tastefully done. It's got about 6 actual bath areas spread over three floors not including the private bath for the Emperor and http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Ehime/Matsuyama/blog-330058.html We are a little behind on our blog...but...better late then never plus you may get a little chuckle out of this one After a busy 5 days in Tokyo we set off on our 1st train ride ever stopping in Nagoya for one night then off to Kyoto. We bought a Japan Rail Pass to get us around Japan which now after our adventures in Japan has come to an end we can say was worth every penny. We were http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Aichi/Nagoya/blog-330057.html First week of classes is almost over. I think I'm in for a good time. SILS is really two very distinct halves Intensive Japanese and everything else. The Japanese classes are very intimidating They are taught all in Japanese 9 hours a week plus an 130 hour elective that I chose to take. At this point I feel a little over my head but I'm supposed to. Sometime recently I've stopped thinkin http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-330018.html The end of last week I went to Kikai to teach for 2 days. The island is just north of my island and you can even see it from the northern tip. The flight was literally 5 minutes. My flight was at 1025 and by 1040 I had boarded the plane flown to Kikai gotten picked up and was sitting at my desk in the teacherrsquos room. Kikai was like every other high school I have been to but I really li http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kagoshima/Kagoshima/blog-329730.html While Irsquom here I guess I will talk about today and explain a day at school in the life of Lauren. Well from 8301030 I studied Japanese and um passed time. It just kinda goes on byhellip. Then I found out that students were cooking a traditional Japanese meal in second through fourth period so I went to help. It was like 50 students or so and some teachers. 2 older grandmother like women http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kagoshima/Kagoshima/blog-329727.html Sunday afternoon September 7 about 1 or so I got a random phone call. It was from a woman named Erena who said she was from Amami but now lives in Okinawa with her American marine husband. She came back to visit to her family and heard from her older brother my mailman that I was here and young and didnrsquot speak Japanese so she invited me to the beach with her and her husband. I found thi http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kagoshima/Kagoshima/blog-329721.html Got up a bit earlier than we had been doing today. We decided we would walk to the Golden pavillion Kinkakuji Temple. It was supposed to be raining so we took umbrellas but ended up carrying them all day because the weather turned out to be gorgeous.The Golden pavillion was really pretty and was the best photo we have taken for days. When we had walked around the pavillion we went to Ryoanji te http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-329674.html Although today was predicted as another rainy day we decided to brave it and set off for Nijo castle anyway. The castle was really interesting. It had specially designed squeaking floorboards to detect intruders this was Daves favourite part of the castle.The inside of the castle was beautiful it had golden painting on the walls and ceilings and dummies acting out the people and the parts the http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-329663.html Waking up to bad weather we looked at recommendations for rainy days and headed out to Shijo Kyoto's largest shopping area. We spent most of the day at Shinkyogoku shopping mall. This had loads of cool Japanese shops and a Japanese HMV. It also contains Nishiki food market. This is a really long narrow street selling all kinds of Japanese food. We tried tofu donuts these tasted just like normal http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-329658.html So I followed the trend of my other travel mates and got skype. So now I can talk to people in the US on Skype I can even make phone calls well that is I could if I had a VISA or Mastercard I may check out paypal though we shall see.That's all that's been going on. A little lonely now that Chu is gone went to Power Mart with Anna which was interesting because she's English about as much as http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Ibaraki/Mito/blog-329614.html Well this part of my adventure is now complete... Yesterday I woke up and had an amazing Japanese Breakfast at this hotel. Everything from a poached egg to mandarain oranges and miso soup. After that drove around and checked out the valley. Iya Valley was very very impressive. If mist covered mountains vine bridges and tons of greenery sounds good to you you'd love it here. Felt very exotic http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Tokushima/blog-329354.html WOOOOOOOOOkaaayyy... where oh where to begin. First off a warning this post is huge as the day was probably the most remarkable day I've ever had here in Japan. Most of the pics of Iya itself is in the next post which I'll make tomorrow it's getting far too late here.I guess last night would be a good start well the night before I left here since people probably won't read this for a few day http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Tokushima/blog-329337.html UPDATED WITH PART 2 It's already a bit lengthy feel free to skimWell it's been a few days since I arrived back in the States I'm back to normal routine and I've finally triumphed over that evil jet lag. As I sit here and reminisce over the wild 'n crazy times we had in Japan I can't help but feel a little regret that the experience has already come and gone. This sort of trip really make http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/blog-329182.html The dorm had its kangei welcome party today for all the new ryuugakusei. It was pretty cool. A lot of people showed up and for some reason I got peer pressured into wearing my looking for a Japanese girlfriend shirt again. The funny thing about this is that about 95 of the people that came were Japanese girls. I was told by at least two girls that they were hunting for a boyfriend. Maybe I http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Kumamoto/Kumamoto/blog-328993.html So Friday a few people saved a kitten not even 3 weeks old from being run over and starvation so everyone in the dorm has been helping to keep her alive. Mainly Phillip Shu He and I have been taking care of her. I named her Chu or ChuChan because she kept kissing my nose. I was the one who got her to start eating. She is doing soooo much better now and she is going to a new home this eve http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Ibaraki/Mito/blog-328859.html S hr ser vi ut nr vi rr p oss. http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Japan/Osaka/Hirakata/blog-328824.html