catching up

Oops, busy month. So a couple days after my last entry, I went to Osaka with C-chan. Work was canceled for that week, so we had some free time, and we were sick sick sick of the aftershocks. Osaka was so calm! It was really nice to relax for a little while, although there was some ever-present stress about how much packing needed to be done in Tokyo to move out of our apartments. Anyway, managed to book a room the night before and then shinkansened there first thing Thursday morning. It was a clear day, so we were lucky enough to have a gorgeous view of Fuji-san for ages! Visited the aquarium, had okonomiyaki, met up with some friends. Went to Kyoto as well to visit Kinkakuji and wander up to Kiyomizu-dera (I was devastated to discover that the amazing vegetarian restaurant from my last Kyoto visit was gone). Got back to Tokyo on Sunday; after the normalcy of Osaka, the empty shelves, infrequent trains, and dark stations of Tokyo were really strange. But it didn't take long to get used to it.

Finished work at the end of March. My last week was so hard! I didn't expect to get so emotional. But I ended up crying so much, after classes, during classes, during our farewell party. I was ready to leave, but it was a bit sad too. I'll miss so many people there! I had a week off and then got talked into working a bit longer, but at a different school. So I've been helping out at Toyosu school for a couple weeks. Am going to stay on for about a month more, then hopefully a vacation and then super hopefully another job!

During my week off, I moved. I'm living in a guest house now, which means I've got my own room, but bathroom and kitchen are shared. It's not bad! I mean, the place is ridiculously ugly, but it's kind of so ugly that I just can't hate it. And I quite like the area, and I like that utilities and internet are included in my rent so I don't need to worry about them. Anyway, I'm not homeless, so I'm pretty happy!

Lots of friend time this weekend! And lovely weather! We're still shaking a lot and things aren't back to normal, but I'm feeling pretty content.

Osaka Odyssey

Last weekend Andrew and I had a Kansai adventure! After work on Saturday night, I met him in Shinjuku and we got some dinner. Sweets Paradise, obviously a brilliant choice for an amount of food to eat before getting on a bus all night. After getting our all-you-can-eat money's worth, we and our cake babies managed to find the spot where we got our bus (totally just on some random sidewalk). We enjoyed the fact that our bus said "Fantastic Story" on the side, but night bus is neither the most luxurious nor the most comfortable way to travel. We enjoyed listening to music, and I enjoyed looking out the window when we were driving through the countryside (so many stars!), but sleeping was not really enjoyed.

Got to Osaka very early on Sunday morning and proceeded to get lost. Eventually found ourselves at that most Japanese of establishments, Starbucks. After breakfast and relaxing (the super comfy chairs were lovely after the bus), we visited Osaka castle where we took pictures and ate pineapple. Then it was about time for Wicked! First order of business on entering the theatre was to stop by the merchandise booth. I kind of wanted to buy everything; they had really good merchandise. I managed to restrain myself a bit and only purchased the souvenir program, an Elphaba phone charm, and a pouch with all the characters on it, super manga style! Then the show, which was totally fantastic! Really interesting to see it in Japanese (didn't understand it all, of course, but easy to follow since, oh, I'm pretty familiar with the show). Obviously some things don't translate well, linguistically or culturally, so it was interesting to notice how they translated some things (for instance, at the beginning of "What Is This Feeling?", where in English Elphaba sums up Galinda by calling her blonde, in Japanese she just flat out called her stupid). After the show, we checked into our super luxurious hotel, then went to the aquarium. After visiting our aquatic acquaintances, we had okonomiyaki, then headed back to our station and went to karaoke. Dessert from the conbini, probably our most bizarre photoshoot ever (recreating the Wicked poster), then sleeping (in a real bed! glorious!).

Planned to get up super early in the morning to go to Nara. Ended up resetting the alarm several times, but still got a good start, although we were pretty zombie-like for a while . It was a beautiful day (lovely weather the whole time, actually, sunny and pleasantly not cold), and it was fantastic visiting Nara. I'd been there before, but Andrew hadn't, so it was really enjoyable for me to get to see his reaction to THE DEER OF DOOM. I'd told him that they were everywhere, but he hadn't quite believed the extent of the craziness. We wandered a little at a temple I hadn't visited last time and then went to Todai-ji, which I had. It was lovely again! On our way back to the station, and for the sake of our documentary (there was a lot of videotaping going on all weekend), I plucked up my courage and fed the deer again. Made the great decision to not do it in the area near Todai-ji where there are a million deer and instead did it in an area where there were, like, two. Neither of them tried to bite me, so much more successful than last time! I was still kind of terrified though.

From Nara to Kyoto (nice nap on the train in between)! We went to Gion where we did some shopping (super luxurious Disney + WA-Qu store!) and found an amaaaaazing vegetarian restaurant. It was delicious and we were the only customers and it was kind of like it existed just for us. I got avocado taco rice , and it was so fantastic. Vegetarianism is in short supply in Japan, so it was a really lucky find! After a stop to sample and purchase yatsuhashi (my favorite Kyoto sweet, and maybe favorite Japanese sweet in general), we went to Kiyomizu-dera. It was my third time to visit, but it was well worth going again. It was almost closing time when we got there, so it wasn't crowded, and the atmosphere was so different in the dark. Really beautiful and a bit spooky and just lovely. We headed back to Kyoto station after and enjoyed Starbucks and karaoke (we weren't sure about the amazingness of it before we eventually discovered a treasure trove of DisneySea songs) before getting the bus back to Tokyo.

It was such an amazing weekend! I was pretty impressed that we managed to do as much as we did in the short time we had, especially as it felt like we were doing things at a pretty leisurely pace. It was lovely to visit Kansai again - both to revisit placed I'd loved before and to see some new things - and see the show and just relax. Happiness!

But the company was kind of the best part.

Day Two: Osaka (Osaka Castle and Floating Garden Observatory)

After finishing the aquarium, I headed for Osaka Castle. I meant to quickly snap a few pictures of the outside and check out the museum inside and then go eat takoyaki at a certain place (at a different station). My plan was foiled! But it was okay!

While I was walking up to the castle, I stopped to read some sign about it, and this man started talking to me. He pretty much decided that we were going to hang out and he was going to tell me all about the castle and the grounds (mostly in Japanese, with the occasional English word and quite a few gestures). I would have found this extremely sketchy anywhere else in the world, but he just wanted me to enjoy Osaka! It was fun! I looked at a lot more of the grounds than I would have otherwise, and I learned things! The museum was really interesting too; it would be cool if the inside of the castle looked like it really used to, but since it doesn't, the museum is definitely great. There were a lot of cool screens (including some depicting gruesome war scenes!) and interesting stuff about early Western influence on and/or opinions about Japan.

Afterwards, my friend-of-the-afternoon bought me takoyaki and then we went to a shrine across the street and then he showed me a kendo training center nearby where we could watch them practicing, and it was awesome.

After we parted, I headed back to Osaka Station intending to get the train back to Kyoto. As we reached the station, I spotted the Umeda Sky Building again, and I changed my plan. "It is on your left," I told myself. "If you remember what direction it is in, you have to be able to find it when you get out of the station." So I did, although it was difficult because I had to make a lot of turns to get out of the station, and then once I got out, although I could see the building, it wasn't a direct route to get there. But I made it and went up to the observatory which was SO AWESOME. I'm so happy I couldn't find the building during the day because the view was so great at night! And the ground up there had glow in the dark bits and there was random cool lighting and it was really lovely. I stayed there for a while enjoying the view (inside and outside) and then headed back to Kyoto. It was a lovely lovely day in Osaka!

Day Two: Osaka (KAIYUKAN)

Yesterday I went to Osaka. My first plan was to go to the Floating Garden Observatory at the Umeda Sky Building. I saw the building from the train. I could not find it when I got out of the station. At the time I did not know what the building was called, only what it looked like, so I couldn't even ask anyone. Eventually, I gave up and moved on to my next plan, which was to visit the KAIYUKAN, the big aquarium in Osaka. It was so so great (even though, you know, there are fish at aquariums, and I am scared of fish)! There were a lot of great creatures to look at, like otters and dolphins and itty bitty crabs and ginormous crabs and penguins and manta rays and whale sharks. SO COOL!

Enjoy a video that includes some awesome whale shark action!

And enjoy some pictures of awesome creatures! And some random penguin art!