Winter Vacation 2008/2009

Well I have a lot to write about here. What a crazy week it has been. There are a few different things that I did so I will split them into different sections.

New Year's Eve/Day

First off is New Year's Eve/Day. I went with a few friends to Roppongi to go to a club to celebrate New Year's. Originally the plan was to go to an Izakaya in Harajuku and have a bunch of cheap beers, but the Izakaya turned out to be closed so we ended up just having a couple of beers at and English pub before heading out to Roppongi.

I think Azrael (the Gaijin Smash guy) put it best when he said "god doesn't exist in Roppongi." It is completely true. One of the things that I didn't like about Roppongi is that there are tons of foreigners. I like to be in places where there are very few so I can have a little bit of the limelight.

But anyways after meeting up with a few of Dan's friends we ended up going to a club called Feria. Feria sounded promising, and I guess if I was more into the clubbing scene I would have enjoyed it more, but Japanese clubs are just not my thing. Talking with Yuko (my previous Japanese instructor) later I found out that there is a certain group of Japanese people that go to clubs. It is considered somewhat delinquent in Japanese society and usually they type of girls that go there are the gaijin collectors.

To say the club was packed would be a gross understatement. First off it was 6000 yen for entrance and three drinks. While the drinks were strong (like three parts whiskey and one part coke), it really wasn't worth it. Anyways on the main floor (the dance floor) it was so crowded that you couldn't even move, let alone dance. It was so crowded that Mark (Scotish) said that he saw two girls cat fighting for a seat.

(Best picture I have)

The only somewhat enjoyable floor was the second and fourth floors. These were a little less crowded and actually gave you the opportunity to move around freely without feeling violated. The only thing is that once you ran out of drink tickets the prices were ridiculously high. It also seemed that a lot of the people there were very elitist. Mark and I ended up using all of our drink tickets and then just going to a bar. At least there we could sit down and have a drink with real people.

Somehow at the bar I lost Mark. I have no idea where he went and still haven't heard from him. Steve said that apparently he made it to the station and got on the right train, but ended up missing his stop. I left around 1:30am or so after talking to random Japanese people. One thing to note is that trains run all night on New Year's night. The only problem is that Odakyu (the one that goes out to my city in Kanagawa) was local only. This mean that instead of skipping the smaller stations it stopped at every single small city between Shinjuku and Atsugi. It ended up taking a couple of hours and it was about 4:30am when I got to sleep.

Overall, Japanese clubs aren't my thing. I've been to a couple now and didn't like either of them. If you want to try to pick up some random girl or "dance" then it should be your thing. Otherwise I'd just go to a bar. It will be cheaper, more interesting, and you will meet in my opinion cooler people.

Chiba
So a friend invited me to her parents' house for a couple of days to relax and get a feel for a traditional Japanese family. Her parents live in Kashiwa in the Chiba prefecture. It is about two hours away from Atsugi and costs about 1000yen by train.

Her parents' house was very Japanese and their hospitality was amazing. As soon as I got there they made me feel right and home and bombarded me with tons and tons of food. I must of gained at least 10kg throughout the trip. The first night we had delicious sukiyaki. Sukiyaki is a kind of Japanese style of food where there is one big pot full of meat and vegetables, and everyone just helps themselves. There was a ton of meat. I pride myself with coming from the fattest country in the world but I still couldn't eat all that they were giving me.For my bed I had a futon on a traditional Japanese tatami mat. It was very comfortable and I slept very well each night I was there.


The following day we went to Tokyo to meet with Steve, Nicola, and Levi to visit the imperial palace. On the 2nd of the year is the only year in the entire week that you can actually enter the imperial palace.

After a quick meal at Subway (yes, the sandwich place, it exists in Japan and I got a foot long Subway Club with double meet which I was ecstatic about), we headed over to palace. Unfortunately we got there too late. It was closed so everyone was a bit disappointed. We did manage to get a few good pictures at the park around the palace though.


The next day I went with her and a couple of her friends to a local shrine. The shrine was gorgeous as was the weather. There was a big line (that went pretty quickly) to the main part of the shrine. At the main part, everyone throws a five yen coin into the money slot, bows, and then makes a wish. Apparently your wish won't come true if you tell anyone, so I'll keep it to myself, for now.

Afterward we went to get our fortune told. After paying 100yen we drew a fortune stick at random from the fortune telling box. Each stick represents a different fortune, so after drawing I gave it to the shrine girl and got my fortune. I couldn't read the kanji, but I was told that it was good luck. I am also going to meet a girlfriend this year and receive something that I deeply deserve (about time)!



After a quick lunch at a Japanese Denny's, we to Tokyo to meet up with Steve and my Japanese instructor from Texas (Yuko). We met at Shinjuku and made our way to some Spanish Japanese restaurant. The food was really nice and I had probably the best glass of wine since coming to Japan. It was really nice catching up with Yuko. It felt nice talking to someone else that had gone to Texas Tech and reminded me that I did have a life before coming to Japan. We talked about things that we missed (driving, Mexican food, The Rec) and talked about what we were doing currently.

The next day I went nearby park. The weather was great and there were a bunch of people at the park exercising, flying kites, and walking their dogs. My friend told me that kites are very popular in Japan during January. It kind of reminded me of when I used to fly kites with my parents as a kid.

After the park we visited an old junior high school. Since it was Sunday, the only people there were from sports teams. It was still interesting to see the outside buildings of a Japanese school and also see the students playing sports for their clubs.

Afterward I went to the supermarket. This supermarket had a large variety of fish including squid, octopus, crab, etc. It was really neat and her dad seemed very anxious to show me around the fish department.


I headed back to Atsugi around 2pm and got back to my apartment at around 5pm. It was a really nice and relaxing trip. Her parents were very nice and I got to eat tons of tasty food. Her parents used to live on a farm, so they also had a ton of fruit that they kept giving me. I had so many apples- it was great. The thing that I really like is that I was able to see true Japanese hospitality. There was a very small language barrier between me and her family, but overall my Japanese seemed more than adequate. It was definitely a trip that was worth the time. Now all I have to worry about is working off all the weight that I gained :-( .