Winter Break

For Winter vacation we traveled to Sapporo, and then Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and finally to Kobe. 17 days to travel Japan! It was definitely a fullfilling trip.

Sapporo had lots of snow and great food. The Hokkaido milk and ice cream was fantastic. I miss it already!

Tokyo was very busy and packed with people. Never before in my life have I ever seen that much porn in 1 city. I got to see Tokyo Tower! it's always been one of my childhood dreams to see Tokyo Tower. Why? because don't cha know!? that's where Sailor Moon lives! and we were lucky enough to see Mt Fuji. On my last night in Tokyo we got stuck on the last train leaving Shibuya station. HOLY CUPCAKES. It's insane how many people they can cram inside that train. It was so tight in the train that I could feel the air getting squeezed out from my lungs. What an experience that was. I also saw a drunk business man touching himself on the train, and then fly across the train because he was too drunk to keep his balance when the train stopped.

Kyoto was by far one of my favorite places, the temples and shrines were breath-taking. I wished we could've stayed there longer. Unfortunately quite a few temples and shrines were closed or under construction, but we still got to see a bunch of stuff. Fushimi Inari Shrine was fantastic and definitely worth the hike to the top.

Now.. as for Osaka and Kobe.. I can't say I did much. Not that they weren't great places, however I got some kind of stomach virus or food poisoning and.. yea.. that was very uncool. It was also very uncool to find out that a bunch of toilets at Kyoto Station did NOT have toilet paper! They weren't out of toilet paper, the bathroom stalls did not even have toilet paper holders. Needless to say while in Osaka I got to know their public toilets very intimately. We orginally planned to sleep at an Love hotel and Manga Kissa while in Osaka, but we were only able to do the Manga Kissa. My friend and I even ended up taking a nap inside the bathrooms for a bit since we did not have a hotel room and since we had to leave the Manga Kissa at 6am. Nothing was open and we couldn't find a nearby McDonalds and it was cold! so yea, into the bathroom we went!

We were only in Kobe for half a day, it was where our ferry to Oita was leaving from. Not much to say but we did happen to catch an awesome street performance by a local musician named Satoshi Yajima, I bought his CD and got his autograph!

So what did I learn from this trip?

-I knew a lot more Japanese than I realized, but there's still many more things to learn
-It's probably not a good idea to eat free mayonaise left in the hostel's fridge...
-Tokyo is not as expensive as everyone says, food is really affordable and you can easily spend only $3 for food per day. 99yen cup noodles work wonders!

-Always O_O carry toilet paper with you

-Even though everyone we met along the way was super nice and helpful, Kyushu folks are by far some of the nicest folks you'll ever meet.

The Continued Benefits of Natto!

Before I go on a glorified rant on my love for natto, I want to explain a bit about myself. Back in freshman year of college I went on medication, and after about a year or so, I stopped taking it. Shortly after I started experiencing an annoying sensation in my legs and arms when I tried to sleep at night. It made me want to get out of bed and start running. Later on I found out it was Restless Leg Syndrome.

It's hard to explain but it kept me up all night long and I'd lose out on a lot of sleep because of it. I'd wake up feeling super tired because I spent more than half of the night kicking my legs and flailing my arms around so the sensation would go away. Doing this helped but it's hard to fall asleep when you keep having to consciously move your limbs around.

This continued on for about 3 years. It only stopped after a few weeks of being here in Japan. And so it made me curious as to why it suddenly disappeared. So after doing a bit of quick internet research(lame I know) I figured out that for most people, after taking a B-12 vitamin shot, their RLS went away. This B-12 is a tricky vitamin. It's found on a lot of things, and foods, but it can be difficult to find it on a reliable and edible source. Why? because B-12 is a bacteria, which during most cooking and food preparation processes is removed. However, on more naturally (fermented) prepared foods B-12 still remains.

Now I wondered what have I been eating in Japan that contains a reliable source of B-12? Yup you guessed it, natto! I've eaten natto at least twice a day, on a daily basis since being here. I sleep so well at night now, it's just great! I no longer wake up at random intervals through the night tossing and turning.

I'm sure my research methods teacher would yell at me for making such a silly statement without sufficient evidence to back up my theory. Once I get back to America I would like to continue this theory with more official research.

Although it has only been 2 and a half months since my RLS has gone away, it is said that the symptoms are often intermittent and may disappear and reappear after a couple months without reason. But for now, I will enjoy my undisturbed sleep at night.

Snow in Kyushu

Let me begin by saying, field trips are awesome and I wish schools in CMS and other schools in America would allow field trips again. These Japanese field trips are so much fun, they allow you to visit historical landmark sites and see the beautiful scenery that only the locals know about. Also on 2 separate field trips they let us try their locally made alcohol, YAY!

This Saturday I went on an optional field trip to Ono River and around the nearby area. It was a cold day in Oita city! But after last Wednesday's weather I falsely believed I would be fine wearing a short sleeve shirt underneath a cloth jacket (it wasn't even a real jacket!). Our first location was a waterfall and river, it was windy and cold, but bearable still.

Then we rode further up the mountain where it began to snow. The picturesque view of snow falling onto the sleepy mountain town reminded me of a snow globe. While the scene was very lovely and breath-taking, I knew at this point I was officially screwed, because I was going to freeze my butt off. And indeed I was right.

Being cold had an upside though, when we stopped to have lunch, the hot food combined with the view of snow falling outside the window was just perfect. I couldn't have asked for anything more than to be there in that cozy room eating Japanese noodle soup with a hot cup of green tea (although a jacket would've been nice too!).

Next we went to a town that makes sake. It was pretty cool, but I was too busy keeping warm to pay attention. Then we went to a park at the foot of a mountain. Needless to say, it was quite cold but also very beautiful and serene.

Throughout the trip, there was a little kid probably 11 years old that had on nothing but a long sleeve shirt and a pair of ripped jeans and he wasn't cold at all. It made me remember when I was a kid, even in the coldest weather I would rarely ever wear a jacket because I never felt that cold, and my parents would always get mad and yell at me to put a jacket on. Geez that kid makes me feel so old! what I wouldn't give to be him at that moment, because at least I wouldn't have felt so unbearably cold.

Just thinking about that day makes me cold. I did have gloves though!...

First Onsen Experience, いい だな！

Let me start off by saying I'm terrified of the nudity thing, I'm even embarrassed to be in a bathing suit. But to let that keep me from experiencing the Onsen would be such a shame, especially since Beppu is well known for hot spring resorts. I had to do the Love Hina hot spring thing at least once before leaving Japan! These hot springs are all over the town, varying in modern, to old style traditional resorts. The older ones tend to be hotter in temperature.

So on Saturday we went to Beppu to check out Hyotan hot spring. It was 700JPY($7) for an adult admission and 200JPY($2) for the yukata rental so we could do the sand bath too. So yea.. back in Highschool even though I took gym and had to change in the locker rooms, me and a lot of other girls managed to avoid the social naked awkwardness by changing in the showers (don't worry it was clean! ... apparently people in my school never showered, now thas nasty!). So I never experienced the room full of naked others, until yesterday O____O. For once in my life I was happy that I have bad vision because I quickly took my glasses off so I wouldn't have to see a thing!

While the naked part is still bizarre and I would prefer some clothes over complete public nakedness, I guess it's not as bad as I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, it's still bad! but not THAT bad. I would definitely do it again.

Oh and on 2 completely random notes, in Japan, the food you order off the menu looks almost exactly like what they bring to you. It's awesome, even fast food items comes out the same way. This can also be a bad thing too, because if you see 4 slices of green beans in the picture, that's exactly how many you're going to get. The quality and quantity matches the photo. That Mega Muffin was delicious by the way.

and before we went to Beppu I went to buy a towel for the hot spring, and I accidentally left my towel in my bike basket at the train station. When I came back 6 hours later it was still there undisturbed! how great is that?? that kind of thing never happens in America, you blink once and somebody might snatch the panties right off you! the low crime rate is definitely one of the many perks of living in Japan.

Bamboo Festival in Taketa

Yesterday there was an amazing festival taking place in Taketa, just an hour and a half away from Oita city.

We went there early enough to participate in lighting some of the bamboo lights. That was pretty awesome to be able to light up the candles. The sun was still out so we decided to walk around town a bit and check out Oka castle ruins.

While walking towards Oka castle ruins it started to rain so the lady selling tickets lent us free umbrellas! her generosity took me by complete surprise. Little things like that just makes me love Japan more and more.

The view from Oka castle ruins is fantastic, you can see the mountains all around you. A lot of skeeters there though, I got chewed up!

It was starting to get dark so we went back to town hoping all the lights would finally be lit. Unfortunately the rain picked up.

It wasn't raining that hard, but just enough to put out most if not all of the candles.

We were feeling a bit down about the rain and ready to head back to the train station when we decided to dry off, warm up, and get some hot ramen and tea at the local restaurant.

The steaming bowl of ramen made everything feel much better. I love eating hot noodles and soups on cold rainy nights.

It definitely made me feel better about the rain situation. Upon leaving the ramen shop we realized there were people still determined to relight the candles inside the bamboo in spite of the pouring rain. They laid the bamboo down so the rain wouldn't get inside. It was cool seeing everyone trying so hard to keep the festival going.

The atmosphere of everything was pretty indescribable. It felt like looking into a sea of stars. The whole night made me reflect and remember that even though things might not go as planned, if you focus on the negatives too much you can easily miss out on up side of things Who's to say that just because its raining that the festival has to end? I believe the rain added more to the whole awesomeness of being there and definitely made the ramen taste 10x better.

Field Trip to Hita

So today we went on a field trip to an old ninja village hidden deep in the mountains of Kyushu island!...

Ok so it's not really a ninja village, it's actually a pottery town, but ninja village sounds so much cooler don't you think? The town was so peaceful and chill and they specialized in hand made pottery.

It was nifty, I love seeing Japanese style towns like this.

They use the current of the stream to fill up the logs which lift the arms up to pound the clay. So cool! Walking through the town all you hear is the stream rushing by and the echo of clay being pounded.

And God said "Let there be rice!"

Blasphemous I know but after a month of having to manually cook rice, I was so happy to finally get a rice cooker. The rice I made was either too soggy, or not fully cooked, it was a very time consuming process. I definitely recommend rice lovers studying abroad to invest in a rice cooker. Good thing Tuan found a recycling shop that sells refurbished cookers, it works great and at a fair price too! When I took the cooker out of the box, I hugged it for awhile and.. well I won't disclose any of the other more intimate details between me and my rice cooker. No, really. When I heard the beep~beep~beep signaling that the rice was done cooking it felt like Christmas morning.

Today I took some folks to the Violently Cheap store. This store is so violently cheap that I saw the price tag leap out and punch an old lady in the face, now that's the kind of bargain prices I want. It's actually one of the cheapest stores I've seen. 10kg of rice for $23.50, and 2liters of Aquarious for $1.37, compared to $1.79 at other stores.

ah on a random note, Japanese cows are delicious. They're like walking slabs of melt-in-your-mouth butter. *drool* but it is a bit pricey. So most of what I can afford is veggies, fruits, and chicken or fish and eggs. A healthier diet is always a plus, and biking everywhere has done great things for my thunderous thighs.

It's starting to get cold here in Oita, yay winter clothes!