Advertisement
Published: September 11th 2005
Edit Blog Post
Haruna-chan and I
Hiking at Kisaichi. Ok, don’t get me wrong here; I am all about the Japanese having mass transportation readily available. I so enjoy the fact that at any given moment in the day I can get up, ride my stylish blue bicycle to the train station and be off on a trip. It’s simple. You can ride a train from Nagasaki on Kyushu island the whole way on up towards Hokkaido. It’s amazing. The problem comes about when you may want to stay out pretty late at a certain destination and enjoy the nightlife. If you are far from home and do plan to sleep you are limited to having nightlife to about midnight when the trains stop running. This can be reasonable at times, but every now and again I enjoy a good almost-all-nighter. That’s not happening. You have to go big and play for the full all-nighter or else not go at all….or… You can play like I’ve been doing this semester abroad. Three weeks have passed since I arrived to Japan and I’ve already taken to sleeping outside on benches, in parks, or anywhere that looks a little better than the last spot I got some sleep, on three different occasions.
Yasaka Shrine
The lighting created by all the lamps was a very nice atmosphere. The first time happened during the week of orientation when we were not issued keys and had to return home by eleven before they locked the gates to the seminar houses. One night Levi and I had enough of it so we decided just to bike around Hirakata the entire night checking out new areas. Quite a good time until the time comes when you are completely worn out and want to sleep, but still have a few hours until you can get to your futon. We ended up sleeping a few hours in a park located fairly close to the seminar house for a couple hours. The rain was definitely not welcomed that night. I’m sure we looked pretty funny sleeping on concrete benches curled up in balls trying to keep dry. All in all it was a good time. I’d do it again…
Our second bout came this past weekend when we went to visit Kyoto at around 6pm on Friday after classes. We figured we would catch the last train home, and just call it a night. So we got to Kyoto around 7pm and went to Gion, the Geisha and teahouse district of Kyoto.
We hit up the Yasaka Shrine, Miyamiza Theatre, and stopped to eat at Pontocho, known for its narrow street filled with a wide range of restaurants from cheap yakitori to highly exclusive establishments. We spent a good chunk of the night at the restaurant chatting with many Japanese English teachers that were sitting next to us. After dinner we decided on the Karaoke / Nomihodai combo for an hour and then hop on the last train home. Well, karaoke went long and we missed the last train so we were stuck again. We spent a lot of time in a Wendy’s eating and then went to crash on some benches along the street. I think Japan is the only country where I would actually just casually sleep outside. We burned a few good hours, woke up and walked around until we found another spot to sleep. We caught the first train home in the morning at 5:50am. Decent time, but you sure miss the futon when sleeping on cement.
Last night was my third time staying out all night. I didn’t think I would ever stay out all night two times in a row, but it some how worked
Ambient light of Gion
Some people despise the neon lighting of Japan and I am not one of those people. out. I was planning to go to Namba in minami Osaka and just look around and do some nighttime people watching. Along comes Levi and he convinces me to come along with him and meet his date for the night. So we rode the JR Osaka loop and stopped at Tenma station to meet Kazu. Lucky for me Kazu had a friend he could introduce me to so I wasn’t alone for the very interesting night. His friends name is Yuko, she’s a decently cute girl with a nice smile. We went out to foreigner’s night at this place Kazu showed us. Quite a good time and I’ll just leave it at that for now…Anyway, we managed to get shelter at Yuko’s place at 7am when she got off work and we all needed some sleep. Houses in Japan are ridiculously small. I swear my dorm room can sometimes feel bigger than some Japanese apartments. Sweet night, Thanks for taking me Levi, you’ll help culture me I’m sure of that.
So yeah maybe if the trains never stopped running I wouldn’t be making these memories and many things could be different from how they worked out. I guess I
Sashimi
Sort of.... shouldn’t complain, but think more along the lines of wow, thank you Japan train system for shutting down and allowing people like me to have unbelievable times. I look forward to the next sleepless night in Gion….Keep it Classy Japan!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0511s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb