Saturday again

Saturday yet again. This time we have plans to head to Akihabara with some friends from KAIT. Started the morning off with a walk through some of the small streets.


Then we got on the train and got ourselves down to Tokyo! Not as rainy as the last time we were there. This is good.

The sign coming out of Akihabara station.

The light store. Not a joke.

We grabbed some food at a place called "Pepper Lunch", my new favorite place to eat in the whole entire world. Apparently there is only one in America... somewhere in California. There needs to be a second one right inside my kitchen.

DELICIOUS

We stopped at some arcades and had at ton of fun. This was after all our general plan. Success.

Yamanote leaves Electric Town.

Of course, everyone knows that there are Gundams watching over Akihabara.

We hopped back on the train and when we arrived at Hon-Atsugi station, there was a musician set up on the courtyard with a keyboard. Her name was Zushi Tamami and she was very friendly!

Playing away.

We bought some CDs from her and she signed them for us!

Good adventures.

Yeah that was fast...

So the day after my adventure to the Imperial palace, I went back. This time I took Candiece with me because it was pretty obvious that she would love it. We jumped on the train and got there in now time. That was a relief. I wasn't yet sure that I could get around Tokyo without a guide.

The Yamanote coming in.

We got there pretty early in the day so that we would have time to see the palace gardens (I only got a glimpse of them the day before). It was a pretty sunny day with only a few clouds. Very good for taking pictures.

Crossing the bridge over the first moat.

Little admission ticket. This basically says "get the heck out by 4:30".

The gardens were like a whole different world. The grounds are roughly bowl shaped, going uphill toward the edge of the stone walls. Tall trees around the perimeter make it so you can barely ever see the city outside. It was like being in a magical forest. Pretty awesome.

Path to a pond.

Candiece in front of a little waterfall!

By the pond.

A raven, a heron, and a swan.

After we were done with the palace gardens, we decided to head to Akihabara (surprisingly Candiece thought it sounded pretty interesting). I guess Sunday is a big day there because we found a wacky assortment of music just outside the Electric Town exit of Akihabara station.

First up the singing, dancing bus-top girls.

Then this punk band that had instruments but didn't plug them in...
What?

Packed streets.

After we walked around and saw what there was to see that day, we headed back. When we got back to Atsugi some of the nice folks in our group put on a little birthday celebration for a few of us (myself included) who had birthdays in the first week of the trip. Yay!

A little birthday cake made from chocopan (chocolate chip bread),
nutella, and banana slices. AHAHAHA YESSS

All in all a very awesome end to a very packed second weekend in Japan.

To Tokyo

I'm going to start posting some more stories and pictures. These posts will be back dated (I was very busy in Japan and didn't really have time to blog :[

Now:

Today was our first trip in to Tokyo with our language partners. Michael and I set out with our new pal Koujiro to travel to a couple different parts of the (very large) city.

Our first stop was Shibuya station. Having heard the story of faithful dog Hachiko in Japanese class, I felt that it was necessary to visit the famous statue outside the station.

Hachiko (ハチ公), the faithful dog.

We checked out the intersection near this statue: "scramblecross" is what Koujiro called it. Apparently it was famous too. Afterward we grabbed some udon at a shop that we passed then hopped back on the train.

The signage on the other side of "scramblecross".

We took the Yamanote Line about half way around its loop course to Akihabara. For anyone who isn't into this kind of thing: Akihabara is a center of anime, manga, gaming, and general "otaku" culture. The whole place is packed full of anime/manga shops, game shops, camera and electronics shops... wow. On the top floor of Yodobashi Camera we found this little treasure:

Thats right. USB controlled tachikoma.
No idea what it does.

All sorts of wild sights to see in Akihabara. Street music performances. Random dances. People in costumes all over the place. Maids handing out flyers... wait what? Yes.

Just like that.

When we were done with Akihabara (for the day, definitely going back), we got back on the Yamanote in the clockwise direction and headed for Tokyo station. Tokyo station has been around for a while. When Japan was first starting to industrialize and coal powered trains were connecting cities, Tokyo station was there. Big brick building in the middle of towering skyscrapers. The old building is basically just sitting on top of a modern train station now. They are currently restoring the exterior so the whole thing was covered in canvas this day. Hope to get a picture of it later.

There's Tokyo Tower in the distance.

Anyway, our purpose in coming to tokyo station is the Imperial Palace. We're getting there pretty late so we didn't have time to see the gardens. This place is beautiful. Literally an island garden in the middle of the city. Promised myself I had to come back here and make a day of it.

The view across the moat. Wow.

City outside of the wall.

Well it was time to head back to Atsugi. So we headed back to the train and called it a day. What a day indeed. Longest post yet I think. Giving myself a medal for that.

More Adventures

Alright, as promised i will start off with a few pictures of my apartment:

This is our lovely window

This is my little shelf with all my books

Our apartment is right next to a little temple and cemetery. It is full of trees. This is the road next to it:


These might look a bit different from the pictures I have posted before. This is because I took them with my NEW CAMERA. On Wednesday we went as a group to the Meiji shrine, Harajuku, and then to Shinjuku. In Shinjuku I visited Yodobashi Camera and bought a Canon SLR that I have been looking at and saving up for.

I took some pictures at the Meiji shrine but these were with my old camera. I am thinking about going back on Sunday to take a few with the new one.

At Hon-Atsugi station

A torii gate at the shrine

These things are HUGE


Tomorrow I am going to Akihabara with my language partner and my room mate so I will have many colorful pictures soon.

Reporting In

The day before yesterday we all landed at Narita. Since then we haven't been able to connect to the internet so I apologize for not being in touch! The internet in my apartment is very complicated to set up and the menu is all in Japanese. We managed to get through most of it but got an error that was 2 paragraphs of kanji... o_o

Anyhow. At 3:30 Tokyo time we escaped from our airplane prison (being in a seat for 10 hours is a lot more exhausting than I expected). Here is the first picture that I took in Japan!


We all hopped onto a charter bus and spent another 2 hours in seats while we drove to Atsugi. We were dropped off in groups and directed to our apartments by Dr. Aoki and Ms. Aya (our contacts from the KAIT international office). About halfway through our apartment drop-off process our charter bus drove over a fragile concrete panel in the sidewalk (there are channels beneath the sidewalk in Atsugi which allow for new wires and pipes to be layed without digging up the road). The panel broke and the bus was stuck.


It was about 9:30 when I finally arrived at my apartment. It is actually a lot more comfortable than I expected. I won't post any pictures of it quite yet because our bags are still a bit of a mess. The apartment building that I am in has about 6 students from our group in 3 different apartments. When we had put away our bags and set up our futons a few of us decided to explore the town at night. We stopped at each of the convenience stores near our building and found our way to the school. The sound of crickets at night is very beautiful and I enjoyed walking at night. I took a picture of the first vending machine that I used in the town (there are vending machines even on the very small back roads near our building).


I purchased a drink called "Super H2O" thinking that it was water. It was actually a very tasty lemon flavored juice drink.

In the morning our group met in the courtyard at KAIT and we received a tour of the school. the Cafeterias on the campus have good food for very cheap. Yesterday I had some rice and pork dumplings for 300yen! The campus is very spacious and pleasant.


After our tour Gary (our teacher) took the train back to Narita to pick up a student who was arriving one day late because of an expired passport. We had planned to go as a group to downtown Atsugi and get our transit cards but that was rescheduled to Saturday. A few of us adventurous people decided to take the bus ourselves and get the cards.

First bus ride

Candiece and the Street

The intersection outside of Hon-Atsugi Station

Ticket machines in the station


My PASMO!

I will post more pictures tomorrow and hopefully I will have internet in my apartment soon!