I guess the most exciting thing that happened was when I was re-stocking my medicine for the week. I have so little medicine left! My pill bottles have acted as something of an hourglass for me throughout the semester, and the sand is getting very low. I can't wait to come home. Just one more time refilling my pill organizer here, and then I can do it sitting at the kitchen table at home in front of SNL, like I used to do. Ya-freakin'-hoo!
I really, really need to go to the grocery tomorrow. I have no bread and no potstickers. This is not good. I'm trying not to over-stock on the food, though, because I get to leave in like TWELVE DAYS so I don't have that many more meals to cook.
Can you tell I'm excited about going home?
There are still so many things I haven't done here that I probably should. Like:
- Riding the Shinkansen, or Bullet Train
- Seeing Lake Biwa
- Going to Hokkaido and seeing Ainu stuff
- Going clubbing in Osaka
- Eating whale
- Seeing the Studio Ghibli Museum
- Going to Tokyo Disney
- Seeing the monkeys at Arashiyama
- Visiting the Umeda Sky Building
- See a kabuki or noh or rakugo performance
- Be in a small earthquake
On the other hand, I've done a lot of stuff; a lot more that I had given myself credit for. I have:
- Seen Mt. Fuji (from an airplane)
- Been to a middle school culture festival
- Been invited to a Japanese dinner party
- Eaten okonomiyaki and takoyaki in Osaka
- Taken a picture with the 10-yen coin in front of the Phoenix Hall
- Stood on a 1500 year old keyhole-shaped burial mound
- Held pottery shards from the Jomon, Yayoi, and Kofun periods
- Seen maiko going about their lives in Gion
- Done karaoke with Japanese people
- Gone drinking with friends at an izakaya
- Learned to cook various things for myself
- Eaten raw horse meat
- Eaten curry for the first time
- Seen manta rays and whale sharks up close
- Been squeezed onto one of the famous man'in densha, or super-packed train cars
- Tried Mos Burger
- Gotten stuck, alone and intoxicated, at a train station at night and made it home safely
- Ridden my bike while carrying an umbrella
- Learned to ride my bike while balancing school books and a week's worth of groceries in my goofy little front basket
- Been to a tea ceremony in Uji
- Seen (and appreciated--yes, I'm weird) more types of moss than you can imagine
- Gotten lost in a train station and asked for directions in Japanese
- Made friends from places including Singapore, Malta, Tasmania, South Ossetia, Germany, and Michigan (^_~)
- Stood naked and freezing outside at a mountainside hotspring at the peak season for colored leaves
- Bought beer from a vending machine
- Been to a middle school band concert
- Climbed up seven floors of a 700 year-old castle in a jeans miniskirt (poor choices, I know; at least I was wearing cute panties that day)
- Seen the world's longest suspension bridge
- Drunk straight from a sacred waterfall
- Visited the same buildings as Ernest Fenollosa
- Seen a Thai film being shot
- Gone shopping for secondhand electronics in Den-Den Town
- Bought an anime figurine out of a gachapon
- Experienced the remnants of a typhoon
- Using Japanese, given my seat on the bus to an obaasan (grandma)
- Sat in zazen in a small Buddhist school in Gion
- Seen the biggest bugs you can imagine
- Learned to use a squat toilet
- Used keigo to ask strangers for favors
- Had the lamest Thanksgiving dinner ever: dollar-store pre-made potstickers
- Stood in a room full of people from around the world and cried tears of joy with them when Barack Obama was elected president
- Watched hosts out recruiting at train stations
- Seen a Sweet Lolita girl on a bus
- Been really, really perplexed by game shows
- Done purikura
- Watched a woodblock artist at work in her Kyōto studio
- Picked up a little Kansai-ben
- Attempted to nap on hot rocks at a spa
- Watched sumo on TV
- Taught English to small children
- Stood inside the largest wooden structure in the world
- Been attacked by sacred deer (messengers of the gods my butt! They just wanted food.)
- Seen some adorable kids at a shrine for Shichi-Go-San
- Watched a kyūdō practice
- Stared for a really long time at a plot of sand with some rocks in it
- Walked the Path of Philosophy
- Eaten breakfast at a train station noodle shop surrounded by salarymen during the Ōsaka morning rush
And that's just the stuff I can think of right now. I guess I've had a pretty successful trip, ne?
2 comments:
A very successful trip indeed! Though regarding Ghibli, it may make you feel better to know that you have to schedule it way in advance. When we went, Howl's Moving Castle had just been released, and the concierge told us that generally you had to buy tickets months in advance!
Yeah, I've got some friends who are getting to go soon. They bought their tickets a month or two ago! Apparently the museum sends a shuttle bus out to pick you up from the train station, and some of the shuttles are the cat bus from Totoro!
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