Silver Week

Adventures involving Wrong Trains, Hostels, and tatami

So really quickly, Silver Week is a collection of holidays that all come one right after another. Basically, it means no school for a few days. Or in some cases, that school is coming in a few days. This past week was Silver Week, well Monday-Wednesday were. And as there was no school, some friends and I decided to pack up and ship out.

We started things off on a "high note" by going to Karaoke. It's this fun little place we found just one stop away from school. It's pretty popular with the international students. I think it was called "Big Wave" or something fun like that. Of the many songs sung that evening "My Heart Will Go On," "Paper Planes," "Bye, Bye, Bye," were among the childhood favorites brought back from the dead. Good times were had by all. (In the picture, back row blond is Amanda, brunette is Ashley, front row boy is Charlie, girl Haruka.)

Saturday continued the adventure with a trip to Nara. Nara was the religious capital of Japan during the 700s. Now it is ruled by countless deer that wander around free to do whatever they please. Including, and not limited to, pooping like a "jelly-bean dispenser." (Thank Charlie for that one...) What made this trip especially fun was that Amanda's host father and FOUR siblings came with us. Basically, there was one American child for every Japanese one. Good times. My little buddy was I-kun. (Pronounced like "ee" in "leek," and kun is just a Japanese thing, so don't worry about it.) He really liked being carried, and I ended up carrying him most of the trip. And by carry, I mean I was used as a personal jungle gym. FUN. Of course, we went and saw the big Buddha at Todai-ji, and it was good to see him again. After that, us "big kids" started thinking about lunch when all of a sudden Amanda's host father pulls out a ton of hot dogs from seemingly no where and gives them to us. Delicious. I was in heaven.

After our hot dogs and Buddha, we made a quick trip over to Horyu-ji. (Here's the wiki page, for fun :D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dry%C5%AB-ji) Basically, it's one of the oldest wooden buildings in the world...and it's sweet. Amanda and I were just in awe of the place, mostly because it was beautiful, but also because we had studied it in our art history classes. It felt sort of like the feeling you would get after stalking someone for years, say for example Johnny Depp, and then finally meeting them. Yup. It was that good. After wards, we made takoyaki (sorta like meatballs, but with squid, and OH SO GOOD!) at Amanda's house. Her family was so wonderful to provide two meals for us, AND transportation. They're great! :D

Then came Sunday. Our real adventure was about to begin. We all met up and made our way down to Osaka where we met our friend Kana who is a local Japanese student we had befriended at school. She speaks wonderful English, and is actually majoring in it. (She is taking a business class, because as she put it, she wants to marry a Western Businessman, BUT she hates the class...and business...) All was well and good, until we decided we wanted a coin locker to put our stuff in while we were out adventuring. FAIL. It took about an hour, if not more, to find ourselves some coin lockers. It was quite the experience...But we did find them, and we did have fun. We basically went around shopping and just hanging out with Kana, and then at night, we went up to the top of this building and saw the Sunset over Osaka. Beautiful. It was quite the site.

OH! I almost forgot! While in Osaka, we made a quick stop to the Osaka Pokemon Center! I have now been to the one in Osaka AND Tokyo! I feel complete! And yes, I bought even more Pokemon stuff. And no, I will never grow up!

Then came the first hostel; and the first of many fun adventures.