Category: Asia

Hachiko!

After yoga, mama and I came back home to find something for lunch. After much thought, mama decided to take me to one of her favorite sushi places in kawagoe a city north of shiki. After a nice walk through kawagoe and seeing people all around enjoy the tiny beginnings of cherry blossoms opening with barbecues everywhere and food stalls along the river banks, we found the sushi place. We sat down an had a nice lunch. After lunch we headed ban home to get mamas things for a meeing she has this evening in shinjuku. Together we took the train to ikebukuro so I could exchange my japan rail pass in or the ticket. I then went alone around ikebukuro for some shopping– mainly to see what’s new in the electronic stores and stores I used frequent when living here. After a couple if hours, I’m now on the train back home to meet up with papa for yakitori :).

This morning, mama and I went to yoga after a great breakfast and eating my itty bitty birthday cake. I sat in the yoga class with about 10 other older women and did various yoga poses! Needless to say, it was a fun experience and really great to stretch after my long journey yesterday.

After a long flight with probably the best seats shirt of business class, we arrived on time. I rushes through immigration and customs so I could make my bus departing at 4:30. Everything went smoothly and I was quite surprised that immigration now does two fingerprints and face scan. My how times have changed! It’s a little rainy an overcast and definitely the ride to shiki will put me to sleep.

This morning I woke up early to get all my stuff together for my trip. Last night I got a beautiful birthday cake that I wasn’t able to eat so it just got a free trip to Tokyo:) I got my iPhone loaded with lost, survivor and desperate housewives so I hope to see a decent charge on the phone to let me watch them all. As I joked yesterday I may have to go to the lavatory and plug into the charger there ;) these past few months have been extremely busy-perhaps the busiest ever. I’m so excited for my break and to visit my childhood dream of japan for cherry blossom season is the beat rejuvination I can imagine for my new decade of life. Stay tuned as my adventure unfolds!

Too short! This trip, albeit was supposed to be just a quick stop over, I didn’t realize how much I loved being in Japan, but using my Japanese everywhere was such a treat. It’s such a waste that my company doesn’t use my Japanese more, I hope someday I’ll have an opportunity to use it with my job, but if not, I’ll just have to make more trips to Japan!
The whole family came to see me off to Narita, and now I’m sitting in my upstairs cabin lounging back typing away on what I did the past few days. San Francisco, I’m coming home!

Today, after breakfast I headed to Asakusa to take some pictures of the temple there. Turns out that there was a pretty big Fireworks festival that night, so everyone had donned their yukatas for the event. Got some great photos, and did some shopping, then headed for my beloved Shibuya to hang out. There I got a call on the cell from Kano and we decided to meet up in Roppongi to go to the Roppongi Hills Observation deck. Again, great photo ops, and we then headed to dinner on her favorite, Ometesando Dori. We ate a great place called Las Chicas, and had some risotto and ravioli. After a nice long dinner we walked back to Shibuya because the weather was nice, and then after some more pictures headed for the subway to go home. Yet another great day seeing Tokyo.

Today, after breakfast I headed to see ICU. I made my way there without really thinking much? So much has changed though, there are so many new buildings, the trains on the Yamanote Line have been upgraded with new monitors that give you detailed information about where you are etc. Anyhow, I made it back to my old university, and it was so nostalgic. I had such a weird feeling of being there, when so much in my life since then has changed, that I didn’t know anyone on the campus, that so many things are new and I didn’t know about it. It was very cool to see, and I can’t wait to tell my other ICU friends about what I saw.
After ICU, I went back to my old apartment complex to find that it’s now pink. It was a shade of gray before, but now it’s a pinkish color. That and the rip-off land lady has built herself quite a nice new castle on the property. I never liked that woman. After that, I went back towards the city and walked around Shinjuku, went shopping looking at electronics and went by Muji to pick up some stationary stuff. I then made my way to Shiodome where I was to meet Kano and her friend for dinner. We decided on a nice Italian place that was on one of the lower floors?we had gone to floor 46 and 47 to look out at the city and potentially eat there, but the lines were too long, and we wanted to eat without having to wait 2hrs +. The food was great and we had a nice time chatting, then Kano and I headed back home.

Waking up when it’s still dark has never been easy, but today I fly to Tokyo! After this hellacious training, it’s going to be nice to relax and see what’s been going on in Japan since I left. Again, I made it up to business class, and enjoyed the flight, arriving in Tokyo at about 3:30pm. Kano’s mom came to the airport to pick me up, and as soon as I exited customs, I looked for her, and sure enough, there she was standing with a sign that said in Japanese ?Ben? ? she thought she might not recognize me! We saw each other, and it was just like being back in Japan again, it was so familiar. I felt 100% comfortable and felt like I really hadn’t left. My Japanese really hasn’t seen too much degradation since I left Japan, despite my lack of opportunities of speaking it in San Francisco. Thankfully, it’s at a level now that I don’t really think about it that much until I try to say something a little more complex.
Mom and I sat for a while and had a snack before we got ready to take our bus back to Ikebukuro station, where Kano would be meeting us. After the bus ride, we met up with Kano and headed to Shiki to find Dad. We all went to a great place with the freshest sushi and had a huge set of sushi..soooo good! After dinner, we went home and I got settled into the room I always stay in. First day back was nice, and looking forward to seeing ICU and Tokyo in the next couple of days.