The Shepards do Japan

I apologize in advance for taking so long to get this post out. I fear now that I’ve forgotten far too many interesting details. Too much occurred anyway for me to write it down while it was happening so I have to settle for a brief summary of the 10 days that we Shepards traveled around Japan together. Here they are.

Saturday June 13th
Luke and Nicole arrived at Narita airport. Leaving my host family’s house was the most unceremonial move I’ve had. And this is in a society that does ceremonies for everything. Uehara told me she wanted me out by 9:00 am. Bogus. So I got to the airport really early to wait for them. When Luke arrived I thought, “Yup, that’s an American.” Japanese people tend not to wear cargo shorts, tube socks, or baseball caps. They also don’t hug and aren’t boisterous. It was great. Having Luke and Nicole around was weird at first and it took me a while to get used to having them around. Luke began noticing all the things that fascinated me a year ago but are normal now. I liked leading them around, although we had a tough time finding the hotel.

Sunday June 14th
Our day in Shibuya, Harajuku, Yoyogi, and Shinjuku. We saw the Shibuya crossing, Harajuku girls, the observatory in Shinjuku, and Meijijingu shrine. Luke had studied the Yamanote line extensively. He said it was really cool to connect names to actual places.
We stayed in a capsule hotel in Gotanda. Nicole’s reaction when she saw the room was, “that’s nice, a whole bank of washers and dryers.” Sleeping in a tube was fun but a rather solitary experience.

Monday June 15th
We all woke up super early (4:45) to get to the Tsukiji fish market for a sushi breakfast and to observe the strange things they sell there. I’ve never felt more in the way in my life. They hate tourists there.

In the afternoon I trekked back out to the airport to collect Nora, Mom and Dad while Luke and Nicole got a massage. Everyone reunited at Tokyo station with hugs abound. Then we boarded a shinkansen (bullet train) for Osaka.

Tuesday June 16th
Another morning shinkansen to Hiroshima and a short tram ride completed the public trans for the day. We checked into the ryokan (Japanese B&B) and walked over to the Peace Park. The Peace Museum was not a fun experience but it was terribly interesting. My favorite part was all the models of the city. I was surprised however, how similar the pictures of post-bombing Hiroshima looked to post-bombing Tokyo.

After some ice cream and okonomiyaki it was time for a hot bath and bed.

Wednesday June 17th
Miyajima is an island just off of Hiroshima bay that has a very famous water-shrine. The shrine was beautiful and we were luckily enough to witness some sort of ceremony being preformed. I had really not a clue what was going on. Luke, Dad, and I decided to climb the mountain next to the shrine, which took a lot longer than we expected. I ended up running ahead (literally) to the top and then back down again to meet up with the girls on time.

From Miyajima we split into two groups and took a ferry, train, streetcar, and shinkansen out to Okayama prefecture. Mom and I shopped for yakisoba ingredients while everyone else grabbed the luggage from our hotel. From Okayama we took a local train to Yoshinaga station. This is the middle of Japanese nowhere and the girls next to us on the train gossiped quite loudly about what conceivable reason could bring us to Yoshinaga. They didn’t know I understood them.
The house here was a jewel of the trip. It was quite amazing, in the middle of the country and all to ourselves. Not exactly quite but very cool.

Thursday June 18th
Is it only Thursday? It felt like a week at this point. We woke up late (much to my father’s dismay) and hiked up a mountain. No one had much energy left. We crammed quite a lot in. So a short hike down and a little rest was due before we all got onto a bus for the station. Thirty minutes on the bus plus a thirty-minute train ride got us to Okayama station. From okayama station we took a shinkansen out to Kyoto.

Up until this point fantastic weather had been clinging to our backs but as we pulled into Kyoto it looked like our luck was changing. The bullet train cut through waves of water and the ancient capital of Japan looked more like Venice than a modern metropolis. This was the one step in the journey I hadn’t planned out so Luke, Dad, and I set out into the rain to find the hotel while the women waited behind. As we stepped out of the station, the most amazing thing happened; the rain stopped.

We round the ryokan after the host ran outside to fetch us, thank god for cell phones, and trekked back to the station to pick up the women. After settling into our tiny Japanese rooms everyone was feeling rather hungry for food and adventure. We set out into the humid Kyoto night looking for some fun nightspots. After being thoroughly disoriented I let Luke take over and he navigated the complicated bus system to get us to a restaurant neighborhood. We satiated ourselves with ramen and then walked some of the beautiful shrines at night.

Friday June 19th
For our only full day in Kyoto I decided to lead us to an area of the city I’d never seen before. It was the trinity of world heritage sites. We stared the day with Ginkaku-ji, the golden pavilion before walking over to Ryoan-ji, with its world famous rock garden. I fell asleep contemplating the meaning of those five rock groupings. We were all slightly disappointed by the rock garden. Ooo, look at the raked pebbles! I failed to see what was so special about that particular garden but I know that if I mentioned that to any native Kyotoian they would smirk slightly with a, “and that’s why you’ll never be Japanese” kind of look.

It was agreed after Ryoan-ji that we all needed a nap. I wanted to complete the trinity and head down to Ninna-ji so dad and I made the trip down there. It was his favorite spot of the day and probably mine too. Zen gardens are so relaxing. It was a large Zen temples with an emphasis on the change in seasons. Each garden had a different theme. I really like how the temples have an emphasis on nature in Japan. The ancient buildings are so open to let in as much air as possible.
Instead of going straight back to the hotel, dad and I swung by the imperial palace. We saw the emperor and everything. Just kidding. The emperor no longer lives in Kyoto, he lives in the current capital of Tokyo. We wandered through the open grounds trying to imagine what in imperial procession would look like. And there are still a dozen or so gates positioned all around the park. Each gate has significant meaning and can only be used by certain people.

Dad and I arrived at the ryokan to find the rest of the family pretty much passed out on the floor. While they napped I found directions to the youth hostel Nora and I were staying at and then we all went to Kyoto station for a tonkatsu dinner.

Nora and I crashed at a youth hostel that night where I met a very cool Indian dude traveling the world for 18 months and Nora met an Australian. They’re everywhere.

Saturday June 20th
We got up early early early this day to catch the 6:43 shinkansen out of Kyoto. It was on that train that I realized I had left my laptop in the youth hostel in Kyoto. Oh no! I called the dude at the hostel, woke him up, and confirmed that my computer was still sitting open in the middle of the lobby. Japan is a very safe country.

We changed trains several times before making it all the way out to hitachino-ushiku station. We met Ishy at my school at and I was able to give my family a quite tour before the farewell party.

The party was the highlight of my trip and I think everyone else’s. Hazuki had planned out the whole thing. There were speeches, in English, about how awesome I am from representatives of the English Club and American Culture class. Then we watched a video where they sang and danced my name and told me how awesome I am. That was followed by a delicious buffet of home-cooked Japanese food. It was supremely delicious. My family mingled quite well with the thirty or so kids that were there. We took lots of pictures doing the peace sign and other Japanese poses. Finally it was time to go and I received a dozen presents before making my departure.

We rode the train back to Tokyo and chatted about the great party we just attended. We picked up our luggage at Tokyo station, made it to the hotel, and then split for Shibuya. Shibuya at night is a sight to behold. It’s like Times Square except bigger and brighter. We were all feeling pretty hungry so I led everyone into a basement restaurant where I accidentally ordered tripe for dinner. Yum. The hotel was nice though.

Sunday June 21st
I hopped on the first train back to Kyoto to pick up my laptop. Meanwhile my family went to asakusa to browse the shops and look at the temple. The train ride was really long and I ended up cutting things very close. I got to my hostel in Kyoto and back in less than seven hours. That’s about 650 miles. Thank god for shinkansens. There’s nothing quite like them. I can’t believe my laptop was still there although I was supremely happy. While I was on the train I realized that I also lost my glasses and when I checked the station lost and found, I found those too. It was a day of things going well.

I met the family in asakusa and hung out for a while. We all ate lunch at a yakiniku joint. Yakiniku is my favorite Japanese food. It beats sushi hands down. Fantastic stuff that is.
For our evening excursion, the last evening in Japan, we went out to Ueno. Ueno is another dense, neon-lit neighborhood in Japan. It’s known for its park with world-class museums and row after row of outdoor shopping. It’s a spectacular place at night. We ate at a conveyor belt sushi joint. They had some sort of device that scanned the colored plates to calculate the cost. It was awesome.

Monday June 22nd
We spent the morning souvenir shopping in Ikebukuro. And then it was time to head to the airport. Getting out there is a journey all on its own. The train takes a long long time when it’s not an express. Our JR passes had expired by that point so we had to take the cheap local trains.
As I boarded my long flight back I waited for the announcements to come on. I remember think when I flew out to Japan oh so long ago, “when I fly back I’ll be able to understand these.” And sure enough when the Japanese announcements came on I understood them. It was a very satisfying feeling, a feeling of accomplishment. So I sat back, popped in my earphones, and watched several horrible airplane movies in English. Bliss.