Japan trip: Part VII - Sendai and coming home

Time: 14.03.15-05.04.15

02.04.2015
Good morning Sendai! This was the day when Yanne started to receive new people into the dormitory and because our stay there was actually not allowed, then we decided to keep away, so we went out.

We had to go to Yanne's university because she had to sign another piece of paper that is so common in everyday life in Japan. On the way we stopped by Osaki Hachiman shrine which is one of the most colorful shrines in Japan. Shrine is dedicated to the kami Hachiman, tutelary god of warriors. Some business men were having a service, with high chance that it was connected to some kind of upcoming project or deal. It was really nice to see that old traditions are still hold.
We went on to Yanne's university where students were recruiting new members to clubs. There were so many students all around and for the first time I felt what means big university. I would like to remind you that Tohoku University is one of the biggest and prestigious universities in Japan and has ~17 800 students and ~1300 international students. So it was really interesting for me to be there. Both of my universities - in Estonia and in Portugal - are rather small. There were also some guys from one club who came to talk to us. They were really surprised to find out that Yanne is studying there.

Even though there are over 1 million people living in Sendai, it feels more like a country city. It is is weird especially because it is almost the whole population of my country, but it is true. You can feel it in everything - architecture, people, nature etc. Yanne can talk a lot about it.
We went to Sendai city center which is pretty cool, because in front of Sendai station there are pedestrian bridges. It was a nice day walking around.

We finished the day with going out with Yanne's friends. We went to nomihoudai and karaoke. "nomihoudai" is a place were you pay for time you spend there and not for the drinks. So advice - drink a lot and fast if you want to get drunk there for paying a little. It is really famous place for businessmen to go to celebrate things, so next table to us were businessmen. NOTICE: I do not promote alcohol drinking - alcohol is bad for your health and should be drank in right amount.
As I am not a big singer then at first it was weird in karaoke, but the easiest way is just to relax and know that a lot of people cannot sing but do it anyway. I was really looking forward to karaoke hoping that I could sing any Japanese song, for example some Tegomasu or NEWS songs, but as usually I am able to forget all the lyrics when I need to sing and I am unable to read kanji.. So only songs in English. I must say that it is rather easy to make a mistake with the right door in karaoke, especially when you have drank already. For me all the doors looked the same and I forgot to check before which was the right one. It was really great and funny day and I was really happy to see that Yanne has awesome friends there.

03.04.2015

We woke up rather late because of the previous night. It was our last proper day in Japan, but we spent it mostly in Yanne's dormitory repacking our luggage,so I do not have any photos from that day. We did go to the city for a moment just to eat and buy last souvenirs from Sendai, but that was it.

04.04.2015 

In the morning around 10.00 we took a bus from Sendai to Tokyo. I thought that it would be much easier to say byebye to Yanne, but I was wrong. Despite the fact that we talk every week and make at least 3 hour Skype-sessions, it was still really painful to leave. I would be a lie if I would say that I was not left in tears. Now all the bus ride to Tokyo seems like I was in another dimension. I sat alone and just watched the big snow-topped mountains going by as if saying "Your journey here has become to the end, remember every moment that you spent in the country you love". It was really weird feeling that I had in the bus.

In Tokyo we still had few hours to spend so we went to Shibuya park where people celebrated hanami. I was actually amazed! The whole park was filled with people, either groups of university friends, families, company colleagues. I know that I knew that it is something like that, but I did not think that there would be so big groups and so big party-ish thing. I have to say that in a way I also was embarrassed, because we did not put our luggage into coinlockers this time, so we were walking around the people with big bags and as Europeans we got a bit too much attention. There were guys inviting us for a drink and one drunk guy was asking email address to keep in contact. This was actually the moment when Chris discovered that she had lost her phone.. with high chance into Sendai bus. Thank Gyoza that in the airport I found it from my bag where Chris before put goods from the store. She had just accidentally dropped her phone there also.

Another thing that we managed to see in Shibuya park was traditional Japanese wedding. I think Japanese weddings are so beautiful and we saw exactly when they were taking wedding photos. Congratulations to newly weds!
Then the time came for us to take the bus to airport and fly back to Estonia. Just 12 hours on a plane to Paris and few hours to Estonia. This time the time difference was worse so I was able to sleep only little sleep and most of the time spent watching movies. From Asian movies I watched "White haired witch of Lunar kingdom". 

05.04.2015

Finally, back in Estonia I almost did not unpack my things because after 10 days in Estonia, I already went to Turkey for a week. Travelling at its best!

These were my 3 weeks in Japan and I hope you also enjoyed reading this. Hopefully I can make another trip to Japan in few years :)

Japan trip: Part II - Tokyo

Time:  14.03.2015-05.04.2015
So once we arrived to Japan, we spent first 3 days in Tokyo. If I have to say my impression about Tokyo with 3 words it would be - busy, crowded and entertaining. Three days and limited budget are not good companions to have in Tokyo.

16.03.15 
We woke up in our really cool backpackers place in Asakusa, Ueno and booked it for another night. We went out around 11 am and I must say that at first I could not believe that I am actually in Japan after all these years. The weather was amazing, of course due to the fact that my own country is rather cold at the moment! Especially interesting was to buy onigiri for breakfast (~120¥) that made me understand that I should start studying Japanese again, especially kanji.. thank Gyoza that we have Yanne for that. But already on the first day I noticed something really annoying: a lot of Tokyo girls like to wear wear too big shoes so the shoe is always falling off. It made me go crazy - I am big fan of high heels, so wearing high heels and not being able to stand properly in them is unacceptable for me and definitely not cute.

For the first thing we went to Meiji shrine. Here I mention that transportation is the most expensive thing in Japan, so we ended up using most money on that. In addition, we had to make calculations about which train or subway tickets we need and which are cheaper. Basically, if you have another train line ticket for a right train line, then you do not have a ticket. Why cannot they make system where all companies use one system in one city? It is really complicated to understand what I am talking about, but once you experience it, it makes your head explode. Or maybe I am just used to system back at home where things have made really easy?

But back to Meiji shrine. Meiji shrine is built in 1920 for emperor Meiji and his wife after their death. I think I do not have to talk about the background and things more, if you want to read it - Google it! I liked it because when you are on the shrine grounds then you do not feel that you are in Tokyo.. and definitely not in Shibuya. We also took our luck there, because this is one thing that you definitely want to do. Even though they have it in English also,  I took in Japanese. The translation is "Open heart is just as inspiring as morning blue sky".

Next we went to Yoyogi park to see plum blossoms as cherries were not blooming yet. I must say that for me almost everything that blooms is beautiful so I enjoyed it much. But even cooler was to see "obaachans" with their doggies. So called "obaachans" are elderly women whose children have grown up already and now spend time dressing up their doggies and taking them everywhere. (of course there are some who prefer cats).  

After enjoying time in a bit more quiet area we decided to go to crowded Harajuku. I actually believed that it is much bigger, but in reality it is more like bunch of small narrow and crowded streets, full of small shops, purikura and Johnny's... and crepes. It was interesting to see, but I am not a person who would enjoy this - the good thing with travelling: you discover new things about yourself. In Harajuku we also had our lunch - Ramen!!  In the end ramen and curry became my favorite foods.

Suddenly it started to rain, so it was not so good anymore to go around the town. We went to Mandarake - it is Yanne's one of the favorite a manga shops. Well of course I found there a lot of things with Johnny's and I almost ended up buying Massu's uchiwa, but as it does not replace real him, then I just took a photo with it. (Notice: Doing it actually in the store is not welcomed!)
The weather got even worse so we decided to take the crowded train and go back to hostel.

17.03.15 
On the second day we took direction to Imperial Palace, but before we went to Zojoji temple and Tokyo Tower. Zojoji is Buddhist Temple, It is the Great main temple and six Tokugawa shoguns are buried there. In addition there are many Jizo statues and at the moment they were all dressed up and had wind whirls. As there was some kind of event going on, we did not stay there for long.

I did expect a little bit more from Tokyo Tower, because they had taken Eiffel Tower for example and Eiffel is amazing up close with all its details, but Tokyo Tower.. :/ sorry, but it is just a tower made of metal painted white and red. We did not go up, because we already heard that it is impossible to see Mt. Fuji, because there was this weird clouds in front of it. But we ate crepes and did not let our mood down. Crepes are one thing that Japan has done really great! French crepes are not nearly as great as Japanese. I had this crazy idea to find one viewpoint to Tokyo Tower that was used in "Hanawake no yon shimai" and believe me - IT WAS DIFFICULT TO FIND! but we more or less found it  I hope :D During that time we also met with one American who was working in Japan, but his knowledge about Japan was almost not existing at all, but we all have one weird memory to remember.

Finally after a long walk we arrived to Imperial Palace, as Yanne said to me before "we can laugh or cry how less traditions and culture is kept there". There really is not much to see, You can go and see the garden and some buildings, but nothing impressive. We decided to go to Akihabara, but as non of us is so into games and technical things we did not stay there for long. Of course we managed to see many maid cafes and middle aged men going there. Did not expect it to be so famous. AAA I forgot about AKB O.o They are everywhere.. just everywhere.. and mostly without proper clothes. I think the company should be rich enough to finally put some clothes on them!

We went back to the hostel to take our bags, but as I had neglected my university work for 2 weeks, then I still had to make at least one assignment before forgetting that I should be in university. 

This night we were going to spend CouchSurfing (I just love that site!) at Ichiro-san's place. While we were trying to reach his place we stopped in Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to see the night view of Tokyo on 45th floor. The view was truly amazing, but I did not like the fact that they had made inside of the floor as a shop with a lot of lights that all reflected on the windows and made the view less enjoyable. In addition, it is not so comfortable to be in place like that with really big bags. But while we were coming from there I saw a guy who looked like Massu - he had outstanding fashion sense, red hair, but he also wore face-mask and a cap... and a skateboard...

Ichiro is a really great Japanese guy who works in Shinjuku, owns a house and has a plan to host at least 200 couchsurfers - if I remember correctly then we were somewhere in 90ties. We made a lot of origami at his place and we found out that my sister Chris is hopelessly horrible at origami O.o Made me even think that we are not sisters at all.  

18.03.15 

It was the last day in Tokyo for us. We started the day with going to see the almighty Tokyo Sky Tree that we had seen almost everyday from far. Already when we walked out of the house, the sky was very foggy and it stayed the same when we arrived to the Sky Tree - this means that paying a lot of money to go to the viewing platform is just a waste of money as you will not see anything. We decided to take a walk and go to Asakusa.

In Asakusa we spent time in Asakusa temple where for the first time we became the "sightseeing" instead of the temple - we ended up being photographed for so many times in Japan that we even thought about making business with it. We saw a lot of plums blossoming in the park - compared to sakuras they blossom sooner and longer. This day we went back to Ichiro-san's place sooner. We went with him to Odaiba - we actually had left it out of our plans before because of lack of time, but he took us there with a car. It is awesome feeling to see Tokyo at night and especially drive in a car at night. It makes you feel that you are in sci-fi movie or in far far future.

Odaiba was wonderful. All the views, students practicing dance or just hanging around. Of course this was the first time I managed to lose everybody while I was fighting with my camera which decided to get low battery. For the first time in my life I felt really lost - exactly the right time when to mention that my phone was the only one working in Japan and I had forgot to ask Yanne's or Ichiro's Japanese phone number. Thank Gyoza that they happened to notice short after that I was missing and came to find me. We went on to see the life-sized Gundam model that made quite a show. Standing in front of it made me feel reaaallly small.  And Yanne got to kiss at least somebody..

But this was it for our days in Tokyo and  next day we headed toward Kawaguchiko to stand close to Mt. Fuji, that put a curse on us, but about it in a next post.