Vacation in Japan

It's been a busy last couple of weeks, with the end of the school semester and summer camp (which is like day camp 4 solid hours of back to back teaching). Then I had two days of desk warming - which I was not obliged to serve but rather to spend 'working at home' - and finally vacation!

I've been asked why go to Japan. Koreans seem very concerned about the radiation there. I was told not to eat sushi or really any ocean things. I had a good laugh inside. Radiation really effects everything, so it's not just the ocean stuff. But I was only going for 5 days, and only spending 2 days in Tokyo area. This answer seemed to satisfy the worried Koreans. (actually someone asked me the other day and Ryan reached his hand over my shoulder and said "See? I grew a third arm!" LOL!)

I flew to Nagoya and caught the shinkansen there to Osaka. Word to the wise - just fly to Kansai airport or Narita - they get overly suspicious of people going to smaller airports. They went through my bag and questioned me. Annoying. The best answer I could give for using that airport was that it was in the middle between Osaka and Tokyo and I was going to both places (starting in one and ending in the other).

They were a bit concerned for how I would get to Osaka from there too. Shinkansen seemed to relieve their fears. Riding the shinkansen is actually pretty nice. Not only is it fast, but it's spacious and generally not crowded. Train riding is pretty convenient there (except in smaller places where the train only comes once every 30 minutes. don't miss your train!) except they don't have the line maps in the train cars - and only in Tokyo did I see a digital map display of the loop you're on. The trains work best if you understand Japanese and can listen for what the stop is.

The plan was to meet up with another English teacher I know from Korea (Natalie) and spend 2.5 days in Osaka, and then 2.5 days in Tokyo. Well, 1.5 in Osaka since I spent 1 day in Nagahama.

I arrived in the evening so it was too dark to take pictures. (did i mention i got lost leaving the station and ended up near Shin Sekai and met a random man who helped me find my hostel? yeah. a little scary, but God is good, and the man was not a creep. It was nice having random conversations in Japanese.) The next day I immediately got back on the shinkansen and headed out to Nagahama to visit my friend Barbi. We decided we never meet in our own country, it's always abroad. She and I rode around Nagahama on bikes, went to the castle there to rent a bike, and they were having a festival. So we browsed little stands and later stood to listen to live music and found they had had more there than we thought.

           

It was too dark to get a decent picture of Lake Biwa. We had no idea the festival would have 2 stages (only saw one) and lots of demonstrations, and a candle design contest! Barbi and I went shopping in this cute little area of Nagahama and I bought a bunch of souvenirs, and also a second-hand yukata.
We ate dinner at one of Barbi's favorite places. It was good, but I got bitten by some kind of mukade nakama.... In Japan they have these poisonous centipedes called mukade. Anything "nakama" means it's related. What stung/bit me is unknown. I mean - we found it under the table - but we've never really seen anything like it. It looked like a gray ant, but it had very large pincers on the front. The mark on my toe where it got me is two little holes (just like a mukade sting). The sting itself hurt really badly. It felt like I was being stabbed by multiple electric swords. It hurt into the joint of the big toe. And it hurt for many hours. Actually it hurt the next day, touching would bring back the stabbing. 

The next day I had to dash out for the next train. I was supposed to meet Natalie in Ikeda around 12:30-1pm. But we missed the train and had to wait 30 minutes. So I was about 40 minutes late meeting Natalie. So I missed going to the Instant Ramen museum. I got to the station in Ikeda, looked around, went to the museum, looked around, didn't find her. Asked the information desk if they had seen an American girl. They were kind of confused. Once they got over trying to speak English, they seemed to grasp I was looking for my friend who I was supposed to meet there. So they helped me look, and made an announcement. They were so very nice and helpful. But she wasn't there, so I thanked them and went on my way. 

I got back to the hostel in the late afternoon. I showered and decided to go out to find some food. 

I forgot to mention the entirety of this trip was always over 30 C (above 90 F) and the humidity was easily 60-70%. Every effort outside of air con was a sweat bath. 

I wandered toward Tennoji in hopes of getting to go in the park, but it was closed for the evening. Then I found this mall (abeno something) and got some curry udon with a ham cutlet. Pretty good for food court food. On the way back from there, I came across a man who spoke to me in English. He wanted to know if I was Australian (natalie is) and if I'd found my friend yet. I said not yet, but I was going to find her. Not sure how or why he knew. I asked Natalie later too and she didn't really know either. 

The next day Natalie and I boarded shinkansen for Tokyo. This was my breakfast. It's coffee jelly (aka jello), almond crush pocky and the Choco Pick Up was actually my nighttime snack.. Lol. 

We got to Ikebukuro by noon and dropped off our luggage there.
And then began our speedy wanderings.