Back on the Road

I had a long, kinda crappy couple of days at work so I decided to turn things around today!

This morning I got up and caught a train to Nikko. Nikko is a town about 2 hours North of Tokyo that's renowned for it's historical, religious sightseeing. There is a group of about 5 temples and shrines that are part of a World Heritage Site in the town.

So I splurged a bit on a more rapid train 'cause I woke up a bit late (you didn't think I'd get up early on a day off did you?!) and I got to Nikko in less than one and a half hours while chatting with an older lady and her friends who were heading to Nikko for a spa-day (it's a great place for onsens as well as temples).

Nikko was BEAUTIFUL. It was nice 'cause not only were the temples and shrines breathtaking but it was a day finally OUT OF THE CITY. I forget sometimes how much I miss nature until I'm actually IN a forest. I spent the afternoon walking around temples and their surrounding giant trees. Then I took a break for a soba noodle/tempura shrimp lunch and warmed up. I checked out a few more sights and headed back.

On the train home my energy for travel was definitely rekindled. Seeing a real sunset for the first time in months and rolling through dormant rice fields while studying a bit of Japanese and listening to Neil Young reminded me how much I love to travel and WHY I'M HERE. I can get wrapped up in what's surrounding me really easily and lately I've been working a lot so I've been getting bitter.

Today was a rejuvination...and best of all, I still have tomorrow off as well :)

Check out the photos from today:

The only snow I've seen in months. I had to take a photo

The original "see no, speak no, hear no evil" monkeys.
Who knew that started here?! I sure didn't

Clearly a Tokyo girl
(please note it was about -4 today and
there's about a 30 minute hike to get to these Shrines
...ridiculous)

A new house and much more!

Hooray!

I've found a new place to live!

and I saw Patrick Watson!

and I got a new snowboard!

The area I'm in now is pretty crappy. Uguisudani (my station and area) is known for it's love hotels. So if I want to leave my house I have to take the train to somewhere that DOESN'T have Korean prostitutes and drunk businessmen. charming. Plus, the place I'm staying has a common room that feels like the stairwell of an old cement building - cold and awful. This was good for a while (it's really close to work and at the same time, still on the main train line to get around the city) but I'm totally going crazy here. So I found a place super close to Harajuku and yoyogi-park (see previous posts for the good vibe-ness of said places)! It's a bit priceyer (if that's a word), but I'm willing to pay a bit more for some sanity.

Secondly, I saw Patrick Watson in Harajuku this past week! SO GOOD! it was so charming and intimate, especially because there were very few of us whiteys that could understand his stage banter. For the encore the band came down into the crowd and I was literally standing right next to them (OMG that percussionist is amazing!) and it felt like a campfire sing-along. BEAUTIFUL.

Lastly, My favourite student GAVE me her snowboard, bindings, boots, snow pants, and a snowboard bag to carry it all in!!! Like most Japanese, the second something is out of style (her gear was 8 years old) they just chuck it and buy new stuff. She just bought brand new everything so she just gave me all her stuff! I'm planning on heading out to the area near Nagano for a daytrip in February and possibly to Hokkaido (the northern island) for a few days in March!!

Basically, life is good :)

YYYs

I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Last Night!!!!

I remember getting their album in high-school! And I finally got to see them live last night - and in Tokyo!

It was WICKED!!!!!! The band was not disappointing in the least - the drummer is CRAZY good and Karen O's voice is dead-on. They played every song I wanted to hear. You should have seen the crowd and during "Pin" - the place turned into an INSANE (friendly) mosh pit. I think that song was particularly well received as the thrashy chorus' lyrics are the language-less "bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum de-doo de-doo de-doo de-doo"

The song I wanted to hear most (Date with the Night) was the encore with Karen O rocking out in a giant tinsel coat (think of an extravagant fur coat and replace the fur with silver, red, blue, and green sparkles) really, would you expect anything different from her?

Although I went to the show alone, waiting in line I started talking to a couple British girls and we ended up sharing a locker and I met their friends and generally we all had a great time.

I took a video of part of "Gold Lion" and I took some photos but of course the quality isn't the greatest. Just believe me, the blur in the middle is Karen O :)




Unfortunately the night had to end pretty quickly as I taught a ton of lessons today, but afterward I met up with a friend for dinner. It was extravagant:

Out and About in Tokyo

A friend that I met in Peru last summer happened to be traveling through Tokyo last week so she stopped by. We ended up going out clubbing downtown on a Monday night (which you think would be dead, but it's Tokyo so there's ALWAYS someone around) and it was bizarre, and awesome, and definitely memorable. Unfortunately, I caught a bit of a head cold as a result but the worst of it ended yesterday, so all in all, I think it was worth it.

Me, Konrad, Karam, and a friend she met in Kyoto, Phil (from Oz)

You know, just two dudes dancing on the stripper pole
that was in the middle of this club's dance floor

Most of the night was just some wicked DJs but at one point there was all of a sudden a dance-off by these two guys, followed by a terrible J-pop concert. Odd...

As a side note, my skin is drying out SO BAD 'cause of all these damn space heaters - seriously, you'd think the Japanese are so ahead of the game that they'd make central heating a more regular thing, but no.

It's 2010! We're supposed to be wearing silver v-neck jumpsuits!

Wowzas! When did it get to be 2010!? Remember Y2K? Yeah, that was 10 years ago!!

time flies

Anywhoo - thought I'd update you all on my fabulous New Years celebrations. Here, everybody goes home and spends time with family for New Years so my workplace was closed and I expected to just stay in studying Japanese, reading books, drinking tea and sitting in pyjamas but I got the exact opposite and boy, was it awesome!

New Years Eve day I headed out to Yokohama. Yokohama is technically a separate city from Tokyo but when you're on the train out there, you wouldn't know the difference. Yokohama is a port city that is supposed to have a good shopping area, some interesting sights, and an intense China town. Since it was January 31st when I headed out there, it wasn't too bustling.

The perma-docked ship at Yokohama's port

Afterward I headed back into central Tokyo to do a tiny bit of shopping for the evening out. For New Years eve, I met up with my Polish-Canadian-friend and his visiting girlfriend to celebrate the countdown in Roppongi. Roppongi is (one of) the major area(s) for partying in the city, but it definitely is the gaijin (foreigner) party district. Being that most people celebrate New Years here with family, Roppongi really was our only hope for a New Years eve party. At first we headed to a small bar, that was a bit of a dud and we headed later to another bar that was CRAZY. I've never seen such a packed bar. The place was DEFINITELY breaking a few fire-codes - everywhere you tried to move was like being crushed in a person-vice.

You can barely see my purple zebra print dress I bought that day :)

After getting home at 5 am the next morning (although we could have been home earlier had we known the trains were running all night) and sleeping for about 4 hours, I headed out with my roommate to his Japanese teacher's parent's place. I had met this teacher when we had our all-night Christmas dinner but I never thought I'd be so incredibly welcomed into her family's home just after one meeting.

We were invited to Fujisawa (which is about 1 hour away by local train) and south of Tokyo. We got out to Fujisawa for dinner, along with my roommates other classmate. OH MY GOODNESS is all I can say. Although the teacher spoke outstanding English, her parents (who prepared the extravagant meal) did not, somehow, through translations, body language, etc. we were able to have quite meaningful discussion along with an AMAZING dinner of traditional Japanese fish, meat, rice, vegetables, and everything you could desire. We stayed up until about 3am again, eating, drinking, and generally being merry.

The sun setting over Mount Fuji as we arrived in Fujisawa on New Years Day

Our hosts
(my roommate's teacher on the left and her two parents,
with her father doing most of the cooking)

The next day, January 2nd, Japanese people still celebrate the new year so we joined in. We headed out to Kamakura. Kamakura is a city with a particularly high concentration of shrines and temples, and over new years that is exactly where everyone heads - to pray. Kamakura is also famous for being a surfing town and for having the biggest non-covered Buddha statue. The day was BEAUTIFUL. The weather was PERFECT and we spent half of the morning on a natural high on the beach just chilling and enjoying the beauty that is this life.

If you click on this image, and look closely, you can see Mount Fuji

Afterward, we visited the big Buddha, ate some okonomiyaki (basically delicious veggie and seafood pancakes), visited a couple other temples, said our prayers, got our fortunes (mine of course suprisingly telling about my character) and eventually headed back into the city.

crazy crowds at the temples over new years

Since we had all just had such a fabulous couple days and we didn't want the high to end, we headed into Shibuya (part of downtown Tokyo) to do some glow-bowling :) And get this Saskatonians, we bowled on the 4th floor of a skyscraper.....so bizarre.

loving the kimono-bowling shoe combo

The last little while were probably some of the best days since I've been in Japan. Hooray for life!