TOKYO, YOKOHAMA and KYOTO, JAPAN

vacation from my school, only a week...not nearly long enough, but i'll take what i can get...before the story, a few impressions: japan is expensive...they drive on the left side of the rode, which is a bit unnerving when you are in a car and you turn left on red...they get on the public buses at the back, and pay when they get off at the front of the bus...the trip started with the flight to tokyo narita...only 2 hours, not too bad...my stress level went way up when i landed, got through customs, and found that no one was meeting me at the airport...i had arranged to stay with a friend, and i didn't have an adress or a phone number...eeeeek...fortunately, i was able to check email and while in flight i had received a phone number...i was able to meet my friend in a couple hours, and after a total of 3.5 hours on trains, we got to my friends apartment...he had mentioned it was fairly large, but i think that was a bit of an understatement...it had three bedrooms, one of which was a tatami mat room, with sliding paper doors...that's where i slept...those doors opened up into the living room, which had windows all along one side...across the street was a beach and the ocean!!!!!!!! not the best beach i've ever seen, but i felt like a queen nevertheless...the first night was just chillin, grilling steaks (with yellow mustard in the marinade, SO GOOD) and catching up on life...the next day we went up to tokyo (about an hour on the train) and headed first to the akihabara area...for those of you who know seoul, akihabara is like technomart...a large area FULL of electronic stores/stalls...basically, if there is anything electronic that you want, you can find it there...i think seoul is a bit cheaper...after poking around for a while, we got back on the train and went to the shinjuku area of tokyo...this area is full of young and trendy japanese, all out basically so they can be seen...there are tons of shops/department stores...we went into a few, but didnt really find anything interesting...we also checked out tiffany's...anyone reading this will be glad to know that i didn't like the most expensive ring in the store...(but i did like the second most expensive:)...the next day my host had to go to work, so i went back up to tokyo on my own...i had grand plans for seeing a number of things, but those plans were derailed when i took one wrong turn...(i will explain this in a minute)...i walked around the imperial palace and after 10 minutes of walking realized that i had missed the turnoff to the yasukuni jinga...this is the shrine which causes so much political turmoil in asia...the reason it causes so much turmoil is that there are 14 class A war criminals enshrined in the shrine along with 2.5 million other war dead...the current japanese prime minister has visited the shrine several times while in office, leading many other asian nation citizens to anger...they see the visits as glorifying japan's military past...since japan has never officially apologized for many of the attrocities committed during WWII, visiting the shrine of these war criminals doesn't make the people upon whom these acts were committed very happy...anywho, enough of the history lesson...i wanted to visit the shrine mostly because of all the political stuff...while walking around the palace, i realized i had read my map wrong, and was in the process of figuring it out, when a japanese businessman asked me if i needed help, and where i was looking to go...after explaing that i wanted to see the shrine, he started to point me in the right direction (according to my map) and ended up deciding to go see the shrine with me...we chatted a bit and after seeing the shrine, he asked me if i wanted to get coffee...why not? i had hot chocolate, he had a beer...somehow, during that time, he invited himself to spend the afternoon with me...this was all fine and dandy, until he made comments like "you are very charming"...and he tried to hold my hand...not exactly what i wanted...so instead of seeing more of tokyo, i told him i needed to get back to my friend, that my afternoon was over...he implied that he would like to come with me, but i pretended not to pick up on that...he also mentioned wanting to come to seoul to see me...now, mind you, all of this was after having general shallow conversation for a couple hours, nothing more...so i headed home, a bit disappointed that i didn't get to see more...when i got back to the apartment that night, i called one of my friends/coworkers from saipan, and we made plans to get together the following day...tuesday morning i got on the train a little earlier than i needed to, in order to try yet another international ATM...i hadn't been able to get any money out, even though i knew i had plenty in my account...this one didn't work either...i still don't know why my ATM card wouldn't work in japan, even though it works in korea...anywho, after that, i met up with my friend in yokohama...it's about 30 minutes south of tokyo, another huge city...i'm told that it's growing quickly, and that there is a lot of money there...anywho, we were super excited to see each other, and spent the first couple hours eating and catching up on gossip...(working in resorts usually creates plenty of drama/gossip)...it was my first japanese food, as i was staying with two americans who had access to a commissary (american grocery store)...very very tasty...just outside of where we ate was the waterfront area of yokohama...in this area is a small amusement park...small in the number of rides it has...one of them, though, is the worlds largest (or it was the worlds largest when it was built) ferris wheel, 105m...the view from the top wasn't super wonderful, but it was nice to be able to look out over everything...after riding the ferris wheel we went shopping...not for anything in particular, we just moseyed through various stores izumi likes...i know that none of this sounds exciting, but the whole point of the day was to spend time with izumi, not see great sights...(of which there aren't many in yokohama, so i didn't miss anything)...that day there was a festival of some sort, though i don't remember the name of it, or what it was celebrating...b/c of the festival, there were a LOT of ladies walking around in yukatas...a yukata is basically a summer version of a kimono...many younger japanese (and by younger, i mean my generation) only have a yukata, because a real kimono is something you buy only once, and is quite a chunk of change...here in korea there doesn't seem to be a lot of variety in the hanbok (traditional korean dress) patterns/cloth but there was a LOT of variety in the patterned cloth of the yukatas...izumi explained to me that it takes two people for one woman to get dressed, because of all the tying that has to be done...i was excited to see all of these women in traditional dress, i hadn't expected to see much...as part of the festival, there was a fireworks show, we found a spot on a field to watch, along with zillions of other people...we got there more than an hour early and there were already TONS of people there, and it only got more and more crowded...the fireworks themselves were great...i haven't seen fireworks like that since my last summer at home in bloomington, at the annual fourth of july fireworks...good times, good times...the next morning i got up early, and went back up to tokyo, where i got onto the shinkansen to kyoto...the bullet train...the normal train to kyoto takes 8 hours...the shinkansen takes 2.5 hours...yeah, it's fast...kyoto was the capital of japan for a long time, much longer than tokyo has been the capital...kyoto is very much the cultural center of the country...there are tons and tons and tons of temples, shrines, and gardens, as well as a few palaces...if you are lucky, you might catch a glimpse of a geisha, though they're not as common as people think...they're actually quite rare...there are about 100 in kyoto, and the numbers are going down...anywho, after a bit of calling around, i found myself a place to stay...it was only 2000 yen a night, which is quite cheap by japanese standards...i got on the bus, and was able to get off at the correct stop by listening very carefully to the announcements and following along on the bus route map carefully provided by the information center...finding the place wasn't so easy after getting off the bus...fortunately, i was able to use what japanese i know to find the place...after getting settled, i walked out and set out to see the kinkakuji...otherwise known as the golden pavilion...it's probably the most visited place in the whole country...you've probably seen pictures at some point...it's beautiful...while wandering around the temple and gardens for a while i met a couple other travellers...one had quit her job in austin to travel asia for a while, and the other is a manager in australia...the three of us chatted for a while, and ended up going together to the next sight, a temple (ryoanji) with a rock garden...the rock garden was created something like 500 years ago, and according to the sign at the extrance, the rocks are perfectly arranged...who decided that, i don't know...we did sit there for a while, each lost in our own thoughts...the next day i got up early and headed out...the bus system is easy and convenient, so i got to see quite a few temples...it was neat, but i have to admit that after the first three or four, they all started to blend together to some degree...at the last i sat down on some steps for a while, and ended up talking to a family from NYC for over an hour...a quiet dinner, and after all the walking i went to bed at the obscenely early hour of 9pm...the next morning i got up early and checked out a couple more temples (including the five tiered pagoda) before hopping back on the shinkansen to tokyo...i would've liked to spend more time in kyoto, and eaten more of the food, but my trip was quickly coming to an end...the last two nights in the apartment across from the beach involved throwing a football on a beach, watching many episodes of west wing, and just relaxing...my flight back to seoul was overbooked, and i was THIS CLOSE to taking the offer of $300 and a hotel night and just going back to korea a day late...but my conscience wouldn't let me do that even though it was really really really tempting...all in all it was a great vacation and i wish it had been longer...the only downside to the country was the expense...japan is not cheap...you can do things that are relatively cheaper, but you can't be cheap...just riding the buses and trains around is going to run you $10 or more a day, depending on how much you want to see/do each day...but when traveling, i don't think about money, or how much of it i'm spending...i don't know when, but i do want to get back to japan sometime...i want to see the northern half of the country, it's quite different from the southern half...another country to put on my list of places of which i want to see more...