Okay, this post is long. Really long. Don't say I didn't warn you. >:(
This is........................... Truly sad.
Yes. Nuff said.
Here is the long (not that long-)awaited holiday post! 行くぞううううう！
(I'm a little hyper, so please excuse the extreme and frequent change in language register.)
I spent a good part of my Christmas holidays in the train, but I didn't let it bother me much. You see, JR (Japan Railways) offers a special traveling pass called 青春１８きっぷ (Seishun 18 ticket) two or three times a year. It allows one to use the JR local and rapid trains limitlessly during five days for a set price (11,500 yen so very roughly 120 bucks). One day starts at 00:00 and ends at 23:59, and all five days don't have to be consecutive, but they need to be during a certain period (December~January in my case). City subways, limited express trains and Shinkansen transits are not included. Obviously, taking the local train can be pretty time-consuming, but it allows you to see the country so much more! Trains in Japan are also pretty-well heated in the winter (more comfortable than my apartment). You can sit down and relax while enjoying the view. One downside, however, is that if you're going a long distance, you're likely to have a lot of transfers and if you get lost, you can waste a lot of time. The farthest I went was Sendai (Miyagi pref) and Kyoto. The ride always took between 8 to 10 hours and there were never less than 6 transfers. But I love trains and I love traveling cheaply, so it was fine for me. What would have cost me more than 30,000 yen ended up costing little over 10,000 yen (and that would still be using the local train, the cheapest although slowest means of transportation), so it's a pretty decent price!
On December 21st was my base school's bonenkai (end of year party). An enkai (drinking party) is an important social event held among coworkers in many workplaces. Enkai can have different levels of formality depending on the occasion (casual weekly/monthly outings, victory at a sports competition, promotion or retirement), but in most cases, there are a number of (written and unwritten) rules of etiquette to follow. For example, based on your "importance" in the hierarchy, you should sit close to the door or far from it. A company president or school principal would be seated across the room. You should always wait to be told where to sit before sitting down and shouldn't start eating until the "Kanpai!" which usually indicates the end of the speech(es) and beginning of festivities. Most rules are common sense and I naturally follow many, but some are trickier. You should never pour alcohol for yourself (it is considered rude and makes you look like an alcoholic); rather, you should go around the room and pour for others. Everyone does it, but it's more the task of junior employees. In other words, even though I'm cut a lot of slack for being a foreigner, it makes a lot of sense that I would do this, but even if you're aware of it, it's tough to get the sense of it. It confused and stressed me a lot at first, but then I began to understand that even if a person has only had a sip, you can go over to them with a bottle and chat. Even if they have barely had any, they will drink a little out of courtesy and hand you their glass gratefully. As you understand, this can be dangerous (i.e. lead to inebriation in a very short time), but no one is forced to drink alcohol. Many female teachers drank tea. When it dawned on me and I started doing it too, I felt better and got a lot of praise.
What surprised me, though, is that people got drunk very fast and although I had quite a few glasses myself, I was just fine. I usually cannot hold my alcohol very well... Anyway, we played bingo and I kept winning (but only claimed my prize the first time, of course). I won a bottle of champagne. ^^ I was expecting karaoke (I had even rehearsed for it, bwahaha), but there was no such thing. We were at a hot spring resort so many people must have been able to enjoy the onsen, but I couldn't (and didn't really want to) go in, because of my tattoos. One is pretty large and looks a little yakuza-ish. But moving on! I also went to the nijikai and sanjikai (second and third parties) in private rooms that only a few people attended, where I continued to drink and eat like a pig. It was a lot of fun. I got to practice my Japanese! (^^)
What surprised me, though, is that people got drunk very fast and although I had quite a few glasses myself, I was just fine. I usually cannot hold my alcohol very well... Anyway, we played bingo and I kept winning (but only claimed my prize the first time, of course). I won a bottle of champagne. ^^ I was expecting karaoke (I had even rehearsed for it, bwahaha), but there was no such thing. We were at a hot spring resort so many people must have been able to enjoy the onsen, but I couldn't (and didn't really want to) go in, because of my tattoos. One is pretty large and looks a little yakuza-ish. But moving on! I also went to the nijikai and sanjikai (second and third parties) in private rooms that only a few people attended, where I continued to drink and eat like a pig. It was a lot of fun. I got to practice my Japanese! (^^)
The next day, I had a train to catch at 10:00 and that almost turned into a catastrophe, because I left valuables in the small safe in my room (wallet with train ticket, cellphone, 3DS, etc.). The onsen resort was about half an hour away from my place. I had gotten a ride back to my apartment and I made that realisation not even an hour before my planned departure, but some of the teachers managed to bring me my things and drive me to the station just on time for me to board. I was so grateful! I'm so absent-minded, it's embarrassing... and despite this, as stated before, I made two wrong transfers and ended up arriving in Sendai not any earlier. Imagine how late I would have gotten there if it wasn't for my fellow teachers! I got there on time to spend a really fun evening with friends. Sunday was my concert, and as you might now, I returned to Gunma on Monday December 23rd, which was a holiday (the Emperor's birthday). Since I was so excited about the holidays, though, I gathered my stuff and left again right away, this time heading to Yokohama to sleep at my favourite manga cafe.
Some friends and I had agreed to spend the holiday season together. They are assistant language teachers like me, and came from as far as Hokkaido and Tokyo. I'll spare you the details of what led me to Kyoto on Christmas Eve night, but there I spend a really memorable Christmas. When we finally got a hold of each other at the train station, we headed to a district called Sanjo and had dinner at an izakaya (Japanese pub). (The waiter was so hot! *O*) There we had tabehoudai and nomihoudai (all-you-can-eat and drink) – this would soon become a habit. ^^ When we were done, we proceeded to another bar (because obviously we had not had enough), where we met some other friends. The drinks were so cheap there! Each was 200 yen (2$) and some turned out to be pretty good! We were all really into the Christmas spirit and, approaching midnight, we treated everyone in the bar, including the staff, and cheered together. I think the other patrons must have been quite surprised, but they seemed happy enough. By the way, those drinks were awful, and one of my friends got a little too enthusiastic and spilled half of mine on me. (He claims I wasn't looking, but it's his fault! >:() No joke, I got alcohol on me two or three more times throughout the rest of the holidays. XD
We walked out not long after and were heading for karaoke when one of my friends (whom I won't name, he knows who he is), started wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone around. I don't remember how it came to be, but he bro-hugged two guys who were standing outside a pub and we started talking. One of them had really good English. They invited us for a drink inside and we ended up spending a few hours there with them. So a moment of joyous impulse earned us new friends and a really good time! XD After we parted ways with them, we proceeded to a karaoke place and spent another three hours there. There were only five of us so everyone got to sing a lot and we were so into it! I never had that much fun before. We were de-li-ri-ous. Obviously, anyone would have paid a fortune to see us performing Bohemian Rhapsody in the wee hours of the morning. 8D When we finally got out, it was nearing 6 AM, so we walked back to the train station and went straight to my friend's apartment, where we crashed until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Seriously, we spent the few next days recovering, but we still managed to go back to Sanjo on the 25th, do some shopping and puri-kura, and go back to the apartment, where one of us cooked us a delicious Italian dinner. Would you look at this little beauty!
On the 26th, we didn't do much again, but we hung around Sanjo once more, though the weather wasn't too good. We had pretty decent pizza (for Japan) (yes, all-you-can-eat again) and then I decided to tag along with some of my friends who were staying at a youth hostel. After grabbing some kawaii donuts nearby (I have the worst influence on my friend's ability to evaluate their hunger), we took the train again and finally got to the station closest to our soon-to-be accommodation. Well, I'll never forget the 20-ish minutes that followed...! Turns out that the hostel was inconveniently far from the station. Not only that, but the streets leading there were pretty dark and narrow. The rain had been falling pretty hard for quite a long time and showed no signs of slowing, much less stopping, so when we weren't walking in the mud, we had to cross a friggin' ocean. Eventually, as we got closer to our destination, we entered the woods (it was pitch black at that point) and couldn't help but notice that we were surrounded by BARBED WIRE, of all things. My overly active imagination too found that one particular building looked very much like a prison, what with those extremely high walls...! Needless to say, it all looked way too much like the scenario from a low-budget horror movie. Not to mention that we were on a trip and looking for a place to stay! So cliché. Anyway, I was originally not meant to go with my friends, but they wanted to do a lot of sightseeing (so did I) and they insisted on me coming, so I did. Naturally, they had not booked for me, so they sneaked me in their room. 8D Don't I have the best friends or what. What an adventure!
Over the course of the three following days or so, we visited quite a few places, most of which are among the UNESCO World Heritage sites. We went to Arashiyama to see the bamboo path leading to Tenryu-ji (Tenryu Temple), a beautiful zen temple where I trespassed (not on purpose!) in a restricted area because I lost my way. No one knows that, but I only had time to see a man (monk?) running after me and telling me I couldn't be there. XD He let it slide, but I felt so bad at the time! Anyway, the sky was pretty cloudy, but I managed to take some decent pictures.
The bamboo path was gorgeous.
That day ended with the monkey park, which is pretty small, but where you can walk amongst monkey (they literally walk around you – sometimes they walk up TO you!). The rule of thumb is not to look them in the eyes, as they consider this a challenge and might go ape-shit on you and try to eat your face. (It goes without saying that you cannot throw rocks at them. Come on.) I couldn't get good pictures since my phone/camera/extra battery decided to be smart little bastards and die on me, but my friends took plenty, so I will add those later. We also went to Inari Shrine. There is a great number of Inari shrines throughout Japan, but the one we went to is the main one. I'm not well-versed in Japanese theology and feeling quite lazy so here are some explanations straight from Wikipedia:
Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) is the head shrine of Inari, located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The shrine sits at the base of a mountain also named Inari which is 233 metres above sea level, and includes trails up the mountain to many smaller shrines. Since early Japan Inari was seen as the patron of business, and merchants and manufacturers have traditionally worshipped Inari. Each of thetorii at Fushimi Inari Taisha is donated by a Japanese business. First and foremost, though, Inari is the god of rice. This popular shrine is said to have as many as 32,000 sub-shrines (bunsha (分社)) throughout Japan. Inari Ōkami (稲荷大神, also Oinari) is the Japanese kami of foxes, of fertility, rice, tea and Sake, of agriculture and industry, of general prosperity and worldly success, and one of the principal kami of Shinto. In earlier Japan, Inari was also the patron of swordsmiths and merchants. Represented as male, female, &/or androgynous, Inari is sometimes seen as a collective of three or five individual kami. Inari appears to have been worshipped since the founding of a shrine at Inari Mountain in 711 AD, although some scholars believe that worship started in the late 5th century. [...] Because of his/her close association with kitsune, Inari is often believed to be a fox; though this belief is widespread, both Shinto and Buddhist priests discourage it. [...] Foxes (kitsune), regarded as the messengers, are often found in Inari shrines. One attribute is a key (for the rice granary) in their mouths.
There are many trails which leads you through a great number of shrines and up the mountain, but for some reason, we kept getting isolated and losing members of our group. We liked to say this was because Inari was trying to confuse us. (^^) Anyway. This was our main event, but after this, we also went (back for me) to Kiyomizu-dera (Kiyomizu Temple) to see the gorgeous pagoda, where it finally started snowing (and not just a few little flakes!). What's a little too bad, when it comes to Kiyomizu, is that there are always so many people. It's just too crowded! Enjoying the view and taking good shots is possible, but it becomes a real challenge...
The same could be said about our next stop, Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion). There were a lot of tourists on site upon our arrival, and while there were a lot of foreigners, the Japanese were also well-represented. What is truly regrettable is that people were too excited about the temple and tended to be a little forceful, if not downright rude. One of my friends was literally pushed out of the way and told something along the lines of "Sorry, but we're trying to take a picture!"... Duh! As if we weren't all! >_< Anyway, despite that, the temple is really worth going all the way. We ourselves were pretty excited and spent quite a long time taking millions of pictures until we were satisfied. But once you've done that and gone around to the back of Kinkaku-ji, there isn't much left to do other than... raid the souvenir shops! Everything was so perfect! I won't say what I bought (I'll give you a hint: a lot) since most of these will be going to my friends and family, but there were gorgeous keychains, postcards, frames, purses, bookmarks, mirrors, dishes..., all of which showed the scintillant pavilion, and we just wanted to buy it all. (And some of us did. Don't look at me!) After that, there were a few stalls that were selling a variety of snacks and (that was a first for me) allowed visitors to sample most of them, so that kept us busy for a while. (^^)
Later, when we were heading to Nijojo Castle, we stumbled upon a truly breathtaking scenery. To this day, I still have no idea what it was, if it was some kind of temple or a private property of some sort. Unfortunately, we found out that Nijojo Castle was closed to admission for the holidays, so we could not get in. But I still managed to take some pictures from the outside! As the night was growing near, we proceeded to look for a place to eat and found it in Sanjo (again!), a place called Mr Young Men that makes mind-blowing okonomiyaki at a low cost. Drool before the divine food.
Our evenings consisted in playing cards in our room while inhaling large amounts of... bitter juice, chocolate and chips (pizza on the second to last day!). Our commendable efforts to get our bodies in a state of advanced... elevation were well-rewarded (except when the... juice ended up on the floor or on my clothes... twice more!) and we shared a moment of sheer mirth in each other's invaluable presence. (By the way... We learned before leaving that we weren't allowed to eat or drink in our room. Adding that to my illegal stay, amongst all things, I'd say we broke quite a few rules... Oops!) In the end, upon my return, I didn't spend as much time in Yokohama as I had originally planned (but I was so glad I decided to stay in Kyoto longer)! It's not like Yokohama is that far from my home and I didn't have much that I wanted to do so I only ended up spending one night there (at the usual place) and after showering and getting more or less ready for New Year's, I started making my way to Tokyo. After I had reunited with my good friends, we set out for Shinjuku, where we had planned to spend the night (literally). This one was going to be good...
Well, it was certainly memorable. First, we met up with two more friends that we hadn't joined us yet and stuffed our face at Shakey's (more pizza). This one had a lot more variety, including squid ink and dessert pizza. Having had enough pizza to last us the rest of our lives, we decided to split up into two groups (boys with boys and girls with girls) as we wanted to do different things. I don't remember the details of what the others did, but we learned later on that they had witnessed the aftermath of a suicide (i.e. blood on the front of a train)... :-( The group of girls decided to go clubbing for a while and we ended up spending most of our evening at a spooky-looking spot called Decadance. If I had known in advance, I would have dressed up, but I didn't, which took away some of the fun. On the other hand, some people had impressive costumes. The barman/maids and other staff members looked especially good! I couldn't quite get into the mood though because although the place was packed (well it was pretty small), most people were only slightly dancing, if at all. I'm pretty shy, but I can liven up a party, as long as someone takes it upon themselves to start it. I think that might have been the case for a lot of people, therefore it was a little quiet. Also, the music could have been better. It was pretty typical "club" music when it could have been a lot darker in style (the best part was when they played Manson's Beautiful People :D). We stayed until well after the countdown, and at that point, some people were hungry, so we went to grab a bite. Festivity was in the air and a few people wished us a Happy New Year in English, which made our night! XD Then we went for karaoke, but there wasn't much time left until the first trains, so we didn't stay very long. On the way there, I had an amazing spicy kebab sandwich that I split with a friend. The taste lingered in my mouth (and heart) long after it was gone... (TT) The moment we parted ways...
What a tragic story.
What a tragic story.
Now I must commend your patience for reading this far and reward you with the interesting part of the night: when everything started to go wrong. First and foremost, I had wanted to see the first sunrise of the year at one of the popular scenic spots, but we thought we didn't have enough time, so we decided not to go. Turns out, the direction I was going (and that one friend who was going with me) did not have any trains until at least another hour. My shoes had been killing me for a long time... The heels were actually not high at all, but I wear heels like once a year or less, so I'm really not used to them. My friend was tired, but I was positively dying. Anyway, we decided to grab some drinks at the conbini and sit down on the floor to rest a little. Okay, I really don't think we looked that bad, so I'm not exactly sure what happened, but apparently we must have looked like we were homeless, because most people that walked by looked at us pointedly, and many of them smiled sadly like "oh, look, how sad, some people are not having very nice holidays" (but we were!) and wished us a Happy New Year. Some men even came to shake our hand, but they were just being creepy and one of them introduced himself and told us he was Nepalese and stuff.
It could have been cute...
If he didn't look psychotic. What with those bulging eyes of his.
Let's move on.
Once we were able to get on our train, we thought our troubles were over. How very wrong we were. We hadn't slept at all and crankiness was starting to creep its ugly face (at least as far as I was concerned). Considering the time, the trains were packed, but I was surprised by that since the New Year holiday is observed in Japan. I wonder if all those people were heading to work? They couldn't all have spent the night up... Thankfully, we arrived at our station before I could kill anyone (Light Yagami much?) and we got off, thinking that we would be sleeping comfortably in our beds in just under half an hour. I was able to locate the bus stop easily this time around and we got into line, exhausted but relieved. Our bus was supposed to be here in a few minutes, so we bore with it, training our patience. The minutes ticked by and many buses came, but none were headed where we wanted to go. In the end, we waited a good fourty minutes before surrendering and coming to terms with the fact that our bus was not going to come. Frustrated, we hailed a taxi and were finally able to rest our legs. But we were not home free just yet. For one thing, we barely had any money to pay for the fare...
We had been gone for a while now, so our cellphones were all but operational. The address we needed to go to was on those cellphones, which means that we had none to give to the driver. We could, however, tell him to drop us at the town hall, which wasn't far from our destination. Thank the heavens, the man was completely adorable and he made our day by chatting with us. He was middle-aged but quite good-looking (as are many Japanese), polite and pleasant, and he was wearing a full suit and a bright smile. He was also extremely patient and made small talk with us despite our lacking Japanese skills. I was almost sad to leave him, but we desperate needed sleep. When we got to the town hall, we couldn't remember where to go and we were too tired to hazard a guess. For a moment, we really thought we were lost forever. It's not a good feeling. Regardless, we had to do something, but we were pretty stuck without our smart phones and all businesses were closed for the holiday. As we were walking past a random apartment block, we decided to go in and that's when I spotted our lifeline: an electric outlet. So we stood there for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the tenants waking up and going about their morning routine... wishing to death that no one was going to come out and see us... that would have been awkward, lol. To our utmost despair, we realized that the phone was no longer charging but discharging...
The numbers were going down!
Should we give it a try, go out there and risk not finding any other electric outlet again? Or should we waste more time trying to charge the phone, to no avail, and rather use up what power it had, rendering the phone unusable? In the end, I thought of something. My camera was holding up, so I took a picture of the itinerary on my phone and we went from there. After wandering around tentatively, still fearing that we were on the wrong track, we managed to find our friend's apartment. I had never been so happy to see it. Honestly, we were so relieved we could have cried. We scrambled in with effort and collapsed on the futon where we slept through the afternoon. I'll admit, it's kind of funny talking about it now that it's over, but at that time, we really weren't laughing. T_T
We won't forget that day, that's for sure...
Well, this marks the end of my holidays. I returned to Gunma the same day and enjoyed a few quiet days at home before school started again. I'm sorry, but I can't think of a funny, creative way to end this post, so I'll just leave it at that. You are free to imagine whatever you want, but please share your thoughts if that's the case. >:) I am curious as to what I could have possibly been doing besides reading Death Note fanfiction and marathoning the series and the movies again (twice).
Well that's that. じゃね！！（＾O＾）
It could have been cute...
If he didn't look psychotic. What with those bulging eyes of his.
Let's move on.
Once we were able to get on our train, we thought our troubles were over. How very wrong we were. We hadn't slept at all and crankiness was starting to creep its ugly face (at least as far as I was concerned). Considering the time, the trains were packed, but I was surprised by that since the New Year holiday is observed in Japan. I wonder if all those people were heading to work? They couldn't all have spent the night up... Thankfully, we arrived at our station before I could kill anyone (Light Yagami much?) and we got off, thinking that we would be sleeping comfortably in our beds in just under half an hour. I was able to locate the bus stop easily this time around and we got into line, exhausted but relieved. Our bus was supposed to be here in a few minutes, so we bore with it, training our patience. The minutes ticked by and many buses came, but none were headed where we wanted to go. In the end, we waited a good fourty minutes before surrendering and coming to terms with the fact that our bus was not going to come. Frustrated, we hailed a taxi and were finally able to rest our legs. But we were not home free just yet. For one thing, we barely had any money to pay for the fare...
We had been gone for a while now, so our cellphones were all but operational. The address we needed to go to was on those cellphones, which means that we had none to give to the driver. We could, however, tell him to drop us at the town hall, which wasn't far from our destination. Thank the heavens, the man was completely adorable and he made our day by chatting with us. He was middle-aged but quite good-looking (as are many Japanese), polite and pleasant, and he was wearing a full suit and a bright smile. He was also extremely patient and made small talk with us despite our lacking Japanese skills. I was almost sad to leave him, but we desperate needed sleep. When we got to the town hall, we couldn't remember where to go and we were too tired to hazard a guess. For a moment, we really thought we were lost forever. It's not a good feeling. Regardless, we had to do something, but we were pretty stuck without our smart phones and all businesses were closed for the holiday. As we were walking past a random apartment block, we decided to go in and that's when I spotted our lifeline: an electric outlet. So we stood there for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the tenants waking up and going about their morning routine... wishing to death that no one was going to come out and see us... that would have been awkward, lol. To our utmost despair, we realized that the phone was no longer charging but discharging...
The numbers were going down!
Should we give it a try, go out there and risk not finding any other electric outlet again? Or should we waste more time trying to charge the phone, to no avail, and rather use up what power it had, rendering the phone unusable? In the end, I thought of something. My camera was holding up, so I took a picture of the itinerary on my phone and we went from there. After wandering around tentatively, still fearing that we were on the wrong track, we managed to find our friend's apartment. I had never been so happy to see it. Honestly, we were so relieved we could have cried. We scrambled in with effort and collapsed on the futon where we slept through the afternoon. I'll admit, it's kind of funny talking about it now that it's over, but at that time, we really weren't laughing. T_T
We won't forget that day, that's for sure...
Well, this marks the end of my holidays. I returned to Gunma the same day and enjoyed a few quiet days at home before school started again. I'm sorry, but I can't think of a funny, creative way to end this post, so I'll just leave it at that. You are free to imagine whatever you want, but please share your thoughts if that's the case. >:) I am curious as to what I could have possibly been doing besides reading Death Note fanfiction and marathoning the series and the movies again (twice).
Well that's that. じゃね！！（＾O＾）
