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Yep. That's right folks. From the 12th to the 28th of July, I was in Japan. To some people, this probably doesn't matter. "Taiyo, we've been there, and we weren't impressed," but hey, frankly, I was impressed. It was my first big trip, and I'll tell you it won't be my last (hopefully my next trip is to Ireland, Australia or New Zealand). Well, I mind as well tell you how it went!
What my mother and I took was a tour called the Shogun Trail by a group called Walk Japan. Now Shogun Trail starts in Tokyo and goes about 900 kilometres to the west visiting sites associated with William Adams (1564 - 1620). Adams, depicted as John Blackthorne in Clavell?s epic Shogun, was the first Englishman to arrive on Japan?s shores.
Well, the first day, we didn't do much. My mother and I boarded a plane to Vancouver from Montreal. That took 5 hours in itself. Man, I really need to explore the west side of Canada someday. Those Rockies are just Gorgeous. After that, was a 10 hour flight to the Narita Airport near Tokyo. Threw up on the landing. If it was up to me, Economy Class would have more space inbetween seats so you can actually be comfortable to sleep in the damn plane .Then we had to take a bus to out hotel which took about an hour. The farthest I strayed from our hotel was down the street to an Am/Pm (kinda like a 7/11 or Couche Tard). We then just propped ourselves to sleep we were so Jet lagged.
*Lesson the Day- Japanese Milk is very rich in Fat
Seeing that the tour didn't officially begin until the 16th, the next few days (which started at three in the morning for us) were used to explore the surrounding area of our hotel and to get in sync with the time we saw the wonder that is Japanese Television. The commercials are... very interesting. More so then I expected. I saw my first episodes of Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist too. Seeing that my Japanese sucks hard, I didn't get a clue of what was going on in Naruto. FMA seemed pretty cool though. I also saw Kim Possible in Japanese too. That was actually kinda cool. XD Once the day actually BEGAN, we explored what was around our hotel. The Tokyo Station Gallery (which ended up being closed), and the Yaesu Underground Shopping Mall, which my mother and I got lost in a few times, but it was all good. We also went to see this interesting Kite Museum. It has over 2000 kites from around the world. Even if it's not your thing, you should still go to see it.
*Lesson of the Day- They have Benjamin Franklin Action Figures in this World. Who knew?
On the 16th, we met our Tour Guide. A very interesting British fellow who has lived in Japan for about 18 years. The first evening that we met him, he took us out to experience Japanese Kareaoke. My mom and I were a little weary at first, but once we found out they were private boxes with groovy lights, we got into it. We all had fun and sang a bunch of songs and everything! We even drank something called Cowpis and Pocari Sweat. How cool is that?
*Lesson of the Day- Songs get Lost in Translation
July 17th, we go visit the Edo Castle Gardens. They were beautiful. I bet ya they're really something during the spring. Somewhere in the distance I heard battle cries of kendo. Apparently, in one of the buildings on the grounds, there are a few police training, or something cool like that. ^^ The actual Castle Ground of Edo stretched way farther than I imagined. Our guide showed us the various Gates that one had to go through to actually get to the grounds. Edo was huge. No, it was bigger than huge... it was... Giganormous. Well, according to Taiyo standards anyways. There was this beautiful bridge that you would take for the Nakasendo trail, but above that was a giant bypass, destroying the beauty of it. Unfortunately, the Japanese are going through a faze that old=bad. So... yeah. That's a bit of a shame. Quebec went through that faze, hopefully, Japan will realize that they have such an interesting history to preserve. Later on in the day, we met up with the rest of the group we were suppose go be with. It was a family of three. A husband and wife with their 18-year-old son, from France. There son spoke four different languages! English, French, Spanish, and Japanese. Some of you may not be impressed, but I sure am!
*Lesson for the Day- I wish I went to a high class private school. - -;
Next Day: Traveled by local train to Hemi, where William Adams had his country estate and visit the memorials to Adams and his Japanese family (mind you he also had a family back in England). We then took another train to Kamakura, and took a few hours to walk up and down some hills to some various temples. x.x; It would've been fine if it wasn't for the heat. At first we thought it was just us, but then we heard a Japanese lady with her family complaining (for all I know, swearing) about the heat and the trek up and down. One interesting temple was the 'money laundering' temple. XD I actually laundered some money myself! Didn't get anything though. After that place, we made it to a Giant Buddha! Now that was a site to see, we even got to go in it! We then took a train back to a town called Itoh and stayed the night. ^_^
*Lesson of the Day- I hate humidity.
The next day we took a walk to the nearby site where Adams constructed galleon ships for the Shogun. There was also a funky statue of him. O.o; We then took a train to Odawara, dropped off our luggage and went and spent the rest of the day in Hakone; a funky little place near an active volcano. Man, did it smell of sulfur. >.<;; There were tons of museams, one that was really neat was the Glass museam, where everything was made of Glass! Trees, rooms, artifacts, everything! It was like a town out of a fairy tale book. ^^
(No more. I mean, there is, but I think you have the general idea. So, yeah. Done)
 Taiyo · Sat Aug 06, 2005 @ 12:08am · 9 Comments |
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