Man Shikoku island was crazy. First two days were spent whitewater rafting and canyoning - great time. Those nights I ended up hanging out and BBQing with the staff from Happy Raft - which is a really great outfitter if you find yourself anywhere near the Yoshino River.

After I left that area I headed to Kochi, which is on the southern shore of the island, and camped on the beach. From there I hiked to temples 31 and 32 of the Shikoku henro trail. I walked for about two hours to the first temple, but when I got to the area I couldnt find it and had to ask for directions. The guy I asked said “san juu ichi san?, kono yama no ue ni ikanakuchya” which means roughly “temple 31, ohh - you have to go up this mountain” lol so I just huffed it and went to the top. It was crazy hot, about 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but it was worth it to push through the challenge and do what I came to do.

I stayed in Kochi one night, which is a cool little city, right near the beach. I’m planning on goin back to Japan next year to teach English and am considering requesting Kochi as my assignment. Maybe I’ll learn to surf or something.

From Kochi I took a train to Tokushima, more specifically Bando station, and hiked from there to temples one to three. At temple one I was kind of taken aback by the kindness of one of the monks there. I was planning on buying the gear that all of the people who hike this trail (henro) wear. So at that point I didn’t really have a ton of money to be throwing around, and so I ask the monk about the sizes and she said that everything was all one size… and that they would be gifts for me to help me on my journey. I was amazed, and it is very rude to turn down a gift, so I graciously accepted and thanked her and then on my way I went.

That is one of the coolest things about the trail. You may be hungry and dog tired and filthy, but people, perfect strangers, will give you food and tips on shortcuts or just plain directions and things like that - and those small acts of kindness really make a difference.

So long story short, I ended up hiking from temples one to 9. After temple nine I realized that I did the worst thing that you can do while travelling, besides getting arrested, losing your passport. (!) I was honestly shocked. For seven weeks straight and through plenty of raucous situations I always had my passport, and then some how, some way, it got away from me. I was a wreck (whadoidowhadoidowhadoido) but I eventually got my head together, filed a police report, and went to search the area where I thought I lost it. No luck. So I made my way from where I was to Tokushima, took a bus from there to Osaka, where I was advised to wait for a while to buy my emergency issue passport because in Japan there is a high rate of recovery.  From Osaka I took an overnight bus to Tokyo and from Tokyo got the train to Mobara where my host family graciously, so graciously, accepted me back into their home. Stayed there for 3 days and then headed back to Tokyo to get the new passport. Long story short, I bought the new passport, and as soon, literally the moment, I walked out of the US Embassy, my host mother called me and said “Maiku (Mike) Maiku, your passport has been found don’t buy the new one”. wow.

I ended up kind of breaking even though, because the hundred I had to spend for the new passport, I kind of got back because there was another hundred I had inside of my passport that was also returned.

Overall it was a crazy trip and the journey from Tokushima to Tokyo and all the things I had to deal with in between were all together, kind of a cool adventure. It was great.

Japan was an incredible experience. Try it out some time.

Thanks for reading everyone, take care.

Wow, it seems like just yesterday we arrived, but lo and behold tomorrow is our last day. Yesterday we had our final exam, and it is incredible to look over the test realizing how much I actually must’ve learned just to comprehend it at all. Today each class did it’s final presentation. My class, J200, put on a rendition of the Three Little Pigs - only we did it Kabuki style and instead of a big bad wolf, we went with a big bad dragon. It was a little bit of a chore to prepare, but in the end it was actually a really good time. Talkin in that nutty voice was kind of funny - and everyone watching seemed to enjoy it.

Tomorrow we’ll have our Sayoonara Party. I’ve heard that most of our host families are coming. Mine is for sure, and afterwards, instead of going to spend the final night in Narita with the group, I’ll go back to Mobara with my host family and spend the night. The next day we’re going hiking at some secret location that they wouldn’t tell me, and ato de I’m headed to Shikoku. I’ve heard that the Shinkansen is an awesome experience to take down too, so I’m looking forward to that as well. I won’t be able to post for a while because I’m planning to leave my computer in my luggage, which my host family offered to hold for me for those two weeks. They’re such nice people - sometimes I feel bad that I can’t understand them as well as I’d like because I know they are likely saying something I should say thanks about. Nonetheless, I do my best and we get by pretty well on that end.

In the IES newsletter they asked us to describe our experience in 3 words. Mike were: chill, fresh, and special. Everyone else took the obvious ones like: exciting, amazing, new, humid, outrageous, enlightening and so on, all of which I absolutely agree with - espeically the one about the humidity. But all jokes aside, this place was so much more unique and diverse than I expected it to be, people - the young people - express themselves in such incredible and unique ways here that it would be a lie to say that it wasn’t a chill place. Of course Tokyo a clean and efficient city, but even the things I’ve experienced stateside in the past were presented to me in such a new, and fresh, context that the word interesting doesn’t do it justice. Not only that, but this has essentially been my first trip out of the states, excluding Canada, and what a trip it’s been. Having been here has ultimately reinforced my interest in Japan, and in returning to teach English, let alone the desire to travel around the world and experience new places and different cultures. This experience is one that will not be forgotten, and I think that special pretty well sums it up.

From the hustle and bustle of this major metropolitan center, I will head to the least populated of Japan’s four main islands to spend the next two weeks all alone, hiking in some of what scarce wilderness Japan has left. I have a rough plan of what I’ll be doing, but I’ll be flexible enough to speak with the locals to find out which hikes are a must. My Japanese should be good enough to navigate that conversation. I will be posting lots of photos and I’m sure I’ll have more that one story to tell for my upcoming posts. Thanks a lot to everyone for your comments and thanks again for reading. Take care everyone. Jyaa mata…..

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted. The reason for that is that I managed to witness an outrageous protest over the G8 summit, held in Yoyogi Park a week before the Summit, which ended this past Wednesday. I didn’t want to post the story without the pictures because the impact of those makes the details so much more tangible. Nonetheless, the internet here is very slow so posting photos is slow going - and will most likely have to wait until after the trip. Hopefully I’ll get lucky with some good reception, but we’ll see.

Anyway, the protest was ridiculous. The police were in full riot gear and had the crowd contained to a narrow walkway which runs north-south through the parks southern division. Spectators were able to move freely around the crowd of protestors, which is why I was able to take so many photos. (they will be up ASAP). The protestors were upset over Japan’s participation in the G8 summit because the leaders of the group, at least those who were most vocal during the demontration, were heavily nationalistic and disapprove of Japan’s participation in the Iraq war and in United Nations peace keeping operations. However, if Japan were to join operations in Sudan it would be thier first time since 2002. Just read the article, they do a better job of explaining than I will here.(http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080629a5.html) I’ll have the pics up ASAP.

Alright so later that week the group did a cultural learning seminar on Kabuki. The lecturer spoke very broken English and they had tech trouble with the video, but it turned out alright, and the next day we actually got an opportunity to visit Kokuritsu Gekijyo, which is the National Theater House for Kabuki. I took a Japanese culture class last semester and we covered Kabuki, so it was interesting to see it in person.

So outside of the theatre there were a lot of field trips from local high schools and it was really funny to see their reactions to our group. You know that they’ve seen Americans and other foreigners, but they were still so excited to see us - it was funny.

Alright so the next weekend I went to this free 2 day festival in the park. Those festivals in the park… and there were lots of chilled out people there selling all kinds of goods. Hammocks, all kinds of handmade instruments, crazy crazy good foods, and a lot of information booths on sustainable energy and hydrolysis and whatnot. That is a very big initiative in Japan and it permeates very strongly into the subculture here. I also met some other foreigners and I was really impressed by them. These two guys from Africa, one from Nambia and another from New Guniea, and they spoke some serious Japanese, French, Spanish, and some Turkish or something. I jumped in on their drum circle for a while, only they weren’t playing drums. Instead they had these boxes made of a thin pine or some other soft wood. They kind of looked like speaker boxes and had a sound similar to a kick on a hihat - if anyone knows the name of such an instrument please let me know. I would’ve bought one, but it’s hard to fit anything else into the suitcase for the trip home. So anyway I got down with them for a little while and we eventually went our separate ways. Saw them in the park the next day though and of course it was a happy reunion - they were really chill people. I did manage to get my hands on a slightly smaller instrument though. It’s called a mouth harp in English; they are native to Australia and they guy who I bought it from was totemo jyozu (mad skilled) at the thing. Which turned out to be the best advertising for him lol. It’s a small tube, which acts as a case, and an even smaller piece of aluminum with a bit cut out which allows the sound to reverberate in front of your mouth. Needless to say, Tokyo is a very international city.

Aside from that I’d like to reflect a bit on the experience of being here in and of itself. Tokyo is such a busy city and there is so much to do that it kind of forces you to sit back and relax even in the midst of such excitement. For example, if you walk into the train station unprepared to find yourself in a huge microcosm (as much of an oxymoron as that might be) of human activity, you might freak out -Especially if you aren’t the type of person who isn’t capable of thinking on your feet. In the stations, which have been a huge part of the Tokyo experience, there will be thousands of people all trying to get where theyre going, plus shops, independent vendors, foods that you definitely want to try, people handing out packets of tissues and other advertisements. (Never buy tissues in Tokyo, they give them out with ads on them for free) And I’m sure it can be easy to become overwhelmed, I was a little myself in the first few days. I’ve seen some foreign families going crazy trying to catch trains and read maps, but the key is relaxation. On top of that, another train comes every few minutes on every line, so no worries.

Even on the streets, there is so much coming at your senses that you really have to let things slide. I think that as opposed to reacting to this by getting very tensed up and on edge, a lot of Japanese adopt an outlook of harmony. However, in recent events it is clear that problems are emerging (referencing Akihabara incident), but still I find that the Japanese are in the largest part very polite and conscienscious people. That of course is not an absolute rule but nowhere is a perfect place. Anyway this is really getting long, so I’ll be back to share more later on. Until then, Jyaa mata….

Photobucket link, sorry it’s taken so long. Many more to come.

http://s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn80/Emgeez86/Japan%20Baby/

So I forgot to tell everyone how Chosei Highschool went. It was awesome. The kids were really excited to see us and practice their English.  After school we went to the club team practices, and those kids were not messin around. I ended up playing volleyball just to take it easy, you know - it had been a long day, and it was not at all what I expected. I thought it would be like a pick up game, definitely not. We really had to get down to keep up with the team. One of the line drills was walking on your hands across the gym - I only made it half way. Anyway it turned out to be a really good time and I made friends with this dude names Kani (the crab). They called him that because he takes this wild looking crouch-pose everytime he’s getting ready to recieve the ball. Cool guy.  So anyway….

Since my last post I hit a little bump in the road. I had what was most likely an allergic reaction to some food that I ate. My eyes and lips and eventually my whole face swelled up like crazy and I had to go to the hospital. The doctors said that when a symptom is so acute a blood test can only be about 10% accurate, so I wasn’t able to find out what caused it, but the upside was that I saved some dough and the stuff that they gave me worked out really well and now, 2 days later, I’m back to normal. Except my one eye is still kind of funny lookin’ - but yeah it’s all good lol.

Aside from thattt - I’ve still been having a lot of fun, and I think it was really important that I stayed in good spirits about the whole ordeal because freaking out would’ve only made it worse. The moral of the story is that troubles are only temporary - even at its worst I just looked to the other end of that tunnel and eventually everything was alright. Greene-sensei teach age old lesson to internet readers, Hai.

Alright I’m out. I’ll post in a little while. Thanks for reading. Later

So we’ve been back in Tokyo for 4 days. This was our free weekend, and some of us wanted to go hike Fuji-san, but the mountain doesn”t officially open until July, and on top of that - the rain has officially come. It’s ridiculous. So anyway, we decided to stay in Tokyo, which turned out to be pretty rad anyway.

Last night we went to club Gas Panic - hah it was awesome. The people are so dynamic. I was dancin’ like a madman - and I got compliments on my CryptWalk. Thank you very much.

Yeah it was a really fun night. Some of the people on the trip have friends in Tokyo, so we met up with them and ended up with a really big group, which made for some of the best Karaoke of my life. People from LA to Kansas, to Philly, to England, to Tokyo, and every where in between - and every body rockin… hard.

Aside from that, academia is ever present. We have a Kanji quiz tomorrow, but it won’t be too bad. It’s actually kind of fun because the more of them you know, the more signs and whatnot you can understand on the street. That’s essentially the value of studying a language in it’s country of origin - it kind of puts a heavier emphasis on the practicality of the material, crash course-in it. The experience is one that could never be forgotten.

So today it’s raining - tis the season. And I don’t know what to do before I start studying. If it wasn’t raining  I’d  just go chill in  the park, Yoyogi-koen. It’s awesome there. People playing daigo (bongos), and skateboarding, and chillin basically. All stuff I like to get into. I even threw a few stunts for the local skate posse yesterday. But yeah, alas - it’s really moist out. Soo…. I dunno. I might want to go play some roulette at the arcade. I have pretend money in the token-bank, lol what a great arcade.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks for yondeimasu. Later.

So sorry guys, last post was from about a week ago but there were some technical difficulties in getting it up. So anyway,

 

Since last time I’ve moved, along with the rest of the IES students, to Mobara to live with our Homestay families for the week. Mine is the Ishii-san family. They’re awesome, hah. I’ve realized how weak my Japanese is from moving in with them, but they’ve been really kind and patient with me. You would think they were feeding a horse with all of the food they’ve been giving me, but it’s cool because everything is healthy. First dinner was a bunch of tempura and miso soup, with rice, a platter of vegetables and some cherries, which are basically served at every meal. For breakfast we had like… kiwi and ‘loquat’ (kind of like a peach) sandwiches and yogurt, plus deviled eggs and ham and the left overs from the night before.

In my introduction letter I wrote that I was into hiking and being outdoors and whatnot so IES paired me up with a family that was into that. The Ishii-sans have been all over Japan for hiking and on our free day, which was Sunday the 14th, they took me to Nokogiri-yama (or Mt. Nokogiri). It’s not too difficult a hike, but still enough so that it wasn’t boring - not that it would’ve been anyway but as far as hiking is concerned… you know what I mean. Plus, they have what’s called a Daibutsu there - that is a HUGE Buddha statue. Huge. And thousands of smaller religious epitaphs. There was also this cliff that was like this outrageous over hang that we went out on. Yeah, good times.

So the family consists of Dad, Mom, big Bro, big Sis, and Grandpa (otoosan, okaasan, oniisan, oneesan, and ogiisan respectively) and their names are Hirokazu, Sachiko, Takahiro (25), Tomomi (24), and Yasutoshi. Pops is a firefighter, mom-dukes is a head nurse and a small hospital, Takahiro is a physical therapist, Tomomi a hairdresser, and grandpa used to be a farmer but he’s like 84 now so he’s long since retired. They are all very cool and have been extremely welcoming. Even grandpa’s been cool even though he can’t understand my weak Japanese. Things are going well with that too, since Saturday I’ve learned about a semester worth of stuff, seriously, and we went out to dinner tonight where I could understand almost everything. Granted, they’ve been really cool about speaking slowly and helping with the things I don’t understand, but progress is progress, so it’s all good with me,

For dinner tonight we had some really great sushi at a traditional, take-your-shoes-off-and-chill restaurant. ITotemo oishikatta (It was very delicious). I ate some eel, a bunch of different kinds of fish, and some next-to raw beef, believe it or not. The family is suprised at how willing I’ve been to try things, and to be honest the only thing I didn’t like so far, which is typical of foreigners - and a lot of Japanese, was’nato’ -fermented bean curd. It’s nasty. But you know - to each his own. 

Alright so tomorrow IES is taking a field trip to the local highschool, Chosei Kotogaku, and all I know is that it’s gonna be cool. We get to join in on some Japanese gym classes and rock with the natives. I might check out some Kendo or Karate, but yeah they have volleyball and basketball and a bunch of the stuff we’re used to too. I’ll let you know how it goes. And I swear - pictures are on  the way.

Thanks again for reading. Peace.

So on Sunday I went to Ikebukoro with a few friends from the program, a  guy named Eric from West Virginia and a girl named Sophia who actually goes to USC, anyway it was awesome- very under rated by the guide books you:ll find. We went to the Toyota Auto Salon and saw some really cool lookin cars… and some robots, we also hit this crazy ass arcade by SEGA, the people who brought you Sonic the Hedgehog, and then Eric broke off and Sophia and  I hit up a massage parlor. They did some crazy things to my back and legs, walked on me and the whole nine. I heard things crack that I never even knew I had - It was great. After that we got lost on the way home, but the Japanese are verrrrrry helpful if you ask them for directions. They will go way across a train station just to show you a map, even though you can tell they are very busy. We made it back without too much trouble, and it was kind of fun seeing some more of the city.  Alright - So that was Sunday.

Yesterday Eric-san and I decided to get lost in Kabuki-cho - which is part of Shinjuku and kind of a sketchy place, but it was cool. We hit this duty free shop and bought a frisbee lol. Anyway yea that place is like a party on the streets, and even though it was raining cats and dogs there were mad people around. One of the major differences between America and Japan, among so many that are far less superficial, is that it is legal and acceptable to buy a beer at a convenience store and drink it while walking on the street. In America people would take this too far but in Japan things stay harmonious. Even when you see some really drunk people carrying on there are no fights or disruptive behaviors going on. I wish we could get that on in the states, but unfortunately we don’t have the requisite cultural constructs for such a practice to be so incident free. Sometimes a beer on the co-na is chill, but I have been enjoying responsibly.  

Today we had a cross cultural training seminar, which was cool, and we were given our homestay family assignments. I will be staying with the Ishii-san family. Pops is a firefighter, Mom dukes is a Nurse, my brother is 25 - they didn:t list his job but he does something, and my sister is 24 and is a hair dresser. It:ll be cool for me to see what it:s like to live in a Japanese family from day to day, and doubly so because I:m the oldest in my family and I:ll be able to see what the shoe feels like on the other foot. My grandpa is 84 years old and he used to be a farmer, I especially can:t wait to meet him. They have a mini-shrine in the yard so hopefully I:ll be able to get down on some traditional stuff with the grandpa. They all seem really cool and I:m definitely looking forward to meeting them. I got an e-mail from okaasan (mom) and she seems sweet as candy; she said *We don:t speak much English, but we plan to communicate by heart* - all the girls went *awwwwww* when I told them that. so yeah she seems really cool.

Anyway, I gotta do some homework so I can go exploring later. The internet is really slow here but I:m planning to put up my pictures soon, I:ll just have to set aside some time. Alright check me out later y:all. Thanks again for reading. Peace.

 

P.S. There has been an incident in Akihabara. A man stabbed a bunch of people and ran over three, There were seven deaths and 17 injuries total. Pretty wild, but everything is okay. The last incident like this occurred back in 2001 and Japan is an overwhelmingly safe country. Thanks to my readers for posting about it. I’m sure you’ve all already heard about it. Also, there have been talks that this is a manifestation of the growing social problems in Japan. The biggest of which is when kids just stay in their rooms, play video games, and read manga all day. Similar epidemics can be seen in America, but the difference is that Japanese parents are sometimes too weak to encourage their children to go outside so they support their habits by giving them money for food and just patting them on the head. It’s kind of a hard problem to solve because the supporting factors of this phenomenon are in place due to long standing cultural precepts, and such things are often hard to get around.

 

Anyway, this post is from a while ago so I’m about to write another about what’s been going on since. Lol thanks for reading guys. Later.

 

The flight was long and enduring but absolutely worth it. If you ever have a chance to come to Asia fly Korean Airlines by the way. The staff is very friendly and they keep you distracted with non stop snacks, drinks, and delicious meals

We actually spent the first night in a traditional Japanese hotel in Narita which is about an hour outside of Tokyo. Complete with public baths, complimentary Kimonos and right across from a Buddhist temple. A bunch of us woke up early the next morning and went to a “Goma Rite” at the temple. Pretty interesting even though we had no idea what was going on. Still cool to watch. We left Narita at about 11 and headed for Tokyo. On the way in you see a ton of stuff: 2 huge ferris wheels, some of the coolest buildings I’ve ever seen, and a really extensive transportation system. Also - you might be aware of this already but, Japan is extremely industrialized so there are a ton of factories and railroads - pretty much everywhere you look on the way in. But anyway,

Things are crazy in Tokyo. It’s an extremely clean city, which is strange because there are no trashcans anywhere on the street. I think this influences the Japanese to produce less garbage because they would be very reluctant to litter, due to their group mentality, and they know that if they have some garbage they have to carry it with them.

So far I’ve been to Yoyogi park, right next to the dorms in the National Olympic Youth Memorial Center (NYC) where our housing is for the program, Harajuku - an awesome district with some of the flashiest dressers (lol you’ll see the pics) and coolest shops- and also to Shibuya (one of the mini-Manhattans of Tokyo) to visit a karaoke bar - you and your friends get a private room and all you can drink (about 12 bucks an hour) which is a great time. Things are actually not that expensive here either. Real estate seems like it’s the biggest factor influencing Tokyo’s cost of living, but you can eat pretty well for cheap if your careful and the trains are cheap too. I bought a multi pass from “Suica” and charges it to 2000 yen (app. $20) and that should last about 2 weeks. Their train systems are really straight too - you can keep the card in your wallet and just wave it near this sensor and walk on through. Today I’m headed back into Harajuku to get some T-shirts, lol, and then maybe Ginza or Shinjuku - but maybe we’ll just get lost and try to figure out the trains. That’s rumored to be pretty cool, and since this is kind of our day off before classes start we’ll have plenty of time.

I’ll try to get some pics up pretty soon. Check me out in a little bit. Thanks again for reading guys - later.

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Okay so I’m about to head out tomorrow morning. After all of the little obstacles it took to get here I’m finally ready to go. The most tedious part is over, that’s for sure - but there will definitely be more obstacles in the weeks to come. A word to the wise, stay on top of your program providers, the financial aid department and your loan provider to get everything straight with your finances, that’s definitely been the most stressful part of preparing - mostly because if that part doesn’t work out then none of the rest of the stuff you’ve planned can work out, most of the time. But yeah….

Now I should probably let you guys in on what I’ve changed my plans to. Origninally I was going by train from Tokyo to Osaka, to Mt. Koya - climb Mt. Koya, and then take a ferry to Shikoku where I’d hike from temples 1 to 22 or so. Then take local transportation back to anywhere I could get to Tokyo from.

But NOW, I’m taking a train from Tokyo directly to Shikoku by way of the Seto Ohashi (Bridge) all the way to Tosa-Iwahara Eki (train station) which is right near the base camp of Happy Raft (http://www.happyraft.com/en/tours/combo/) where I’ll do a day and a half long tour of the area. Day one will be a whitewater tour of the Koboke section of the Yoshino River - Japan’s illest rafting destination. The next half day is a canyoning tour of the valley. During this part of the trip the group repels down waterfalls, slides down natural waterslides and gets busy on some rock faces. Should be a pretty cool trip.

So after that I’m trying to decide whether to head toward the densest concentration of temples, which will be in the cities on that part of the island, or to head inland and try to check out fewer temples, but more rural villages and back country landscape. Either way I’m planning to camp out for a good portion of the time and I will have two weeks to pretty much do what I want with so… it’ll be good.

While I’m in Tokyo I definitely want to check out some day trips - one of which’ll hopefully be to Mt. Fuji a dormant stratovolcano which stands at 12 388 ft (3,776 m). So you know I gotta climb that thing. It’s definitely a two day trip which requires that you spend a night at the peak. No complaints. It’s a pretty cool mountain though. You can see it from Tokyo, and Yokohama and it’s surrounded by a bunch of lakes. (Wikipedia y’all)

I’m also going to set up a photobucket or some other photo page for everyone to see what I’ve been up to. And definitely expect a bunch of pics from Tokyo. I’ll be on after I land. Sayoonara everybody.