Kamakura Trip!

I live about an hour and fifteen minutes away from the great historical city of Kamakura. I've been meaning to head over there for quite sometime now but Sunday was the first time that I actually got to visit. It was a great experience and I had a fantastic time!
The experience started as soon as I pulled into Fujisawa. From there, I took an old historical electric railline it was really cute and fun!

The train!

While on the train, I got my first glimpse of the sea since I arrived here months ago.

There it is!

My first stop was to go to Kotokuin Temple to see the Great Buddha of Kamakura. This bronze statue is the second largest Buddha statue in Japan. It was originally cast in 1252. I couldn't wait to get it in person. I also heard that Kamakura was very beautiful in the fall so I was looking forward to what the scenery around the statue would look like. It did not disappoint!

Me and the Buddha

The Buddha's slippers

The inside of the statue

After seeing the Great Buddha, I did some shopping for gifts. I also ended up getting some green tea and sweet potato ice cream. I was unsure of how it was going to taste but it was really good! I liked it a lot! W While I was getting the ice cream, the clerk asked me where I was from. I told him that I was American and he pointed towards a picture of President Obama outside of the store dated 11/14/2010. He smiled and told me, "President Obama, okay! Nice!" I smiled and told him that I was from Illinois which is where Obama is from as well and he nearly freaked out! It was so funny. He shouted "Sugoi!" and told the other cashiers that I was from Chicago in quick Japanese and they all shook their heads and agreed that it was very awesome. It was quite the fun little experience. I then headed to another temple on my way back to the train. It was Hasedera, a temple dedicated to the goddess Kannon. I adored this temple. It had beautiful gardens, a fantastic view, and awe inspiring statues. Oh, and an amazingly creepy sacred cave.

The gardens

The temple lit up at night. The colors in front of the temple change.

Sacred cave!

The inside of the cave

The fantastic view

 

It was a fabulous day of exploring which I REALLY needed after a rough week at work. Great way to turn the week around!

Japanese Style BBQ

I had a fun weekend this weekend! A part of that weekend was going to a Japanese style BBQ on Monday. There were some fun differences that I really enjoyed experiencing. We had the BBQ next to the river in a town about 35 mins from my apartment. I didn't realize how popular of an activity this was! There were at least 15 other groups around the area that we were in!
Of course, the major difference here was the food that we ate. At a traditional American BBQ, we have hamburgers, hot dogs, and maybe some chicken sandwiches or bratwurst. Here, the main dish was fish, as I expected. Everyone shared the same big fish.

Cleaning and gutting the fish

Grilling that bad boy up

We also had yakisoba (fried noodles) as well as various meats and veggies. It was great. We ate all day, literally. I arrived at 12:30 and left at 6:30 and the grill was never cold. It was really cool. We cooked a lot of different foods and everyone had a little bit of everything. Not many people there spoke English so it was an adventure in and of itself just to try communicating with some new people. Still, I did it! It was a great time with some amazing people and food!

Shizuoka and Hakone weekend!

This weekend, I took a trip with the adventure club Tokyo Gaijins. Our tour schedule got changed many a times due to unforeseen circumstances but we powered through it and had a good time.
We started our trip by taking a hike to go these seven famous waterfalls. Here is where some of the trouble started. There was a huge typhoon that just passed through here a couple of weeks ago. There was still damage that the grounds staff had to clear up, so two of the waterfalls were still off limits. We still saw five of the waterfalls and had a picnic lunch while sitting and enjoying the view.

The legend is if you can throw a stone and it stays on this sacred rock, you will have good luck for the rest of your life. I failed...

It was so beautiful

After the hike, we were supposed to go to a traditional Japanese onsen (hot spring). However, we ran into two problems. First, the original onsen was closed due to typhoon damage. At the second onsen that we were supposed to go to a maintenance man dropped a light bulb into the spring and there was glass everywhere. Needless to say, that onsen was out.
We decided to head up to Hakone and find an onsen there to relax at. I was determined to visit one as this was one of the main reasons I signed up for the trip.
We started the Hakone trip by traveling up to the mountains on a literally spiraled road.

Once there, we did a little sight seeing. My group visited a shinto shrine in the area which was beautiful! It was dedicated to the lake.

Sacred tree

My favorite part of this photo is the Japanese couple admiring the lake.

After that, we went farther up into the mountains to see some sulfur pots and natural springs. As expected, it was pretty smelly but still cool. My favorite part was the view of the town and Mt. Fuji.

Wow, just stunning.

That's Mt. Fuji in the distance.

Then came the part of the trip that I had been both dreading and looking forward to, it was time to go to the onsen. Now, something to understand about traditional Japanese hot springs is that there are two different hot springs for ladies and gentleman because you go into the hot springs totally naked...quite a daunting
idea to me...I was determined to do it at least once while I was here though. At first, I was a bit embarrass ed because I had never done anything like this before. But the others were really supportive and coaxed me out of the dressing room. Soon, I was in the natural hot spring and relaxing. We knew it was a natural hot spring because there are trace amounts of sulfur which started turning my skin yellow! I ended up loving it so I'm beyond happy I gave it a try!
After the relaxing onsen, we drove home. I was so relaxed that I slept the whole way home. All in all it was a fun trip. I got to meet some new people and saw some great sights.

The group. The photographer told us to do a muscle man pose but apparently I was the only one who got the memo lol

Making friends: The first 3 months

One of my main concerns coming here was social. I was instructed by my company to not learn the language and all I could think is: how in the world am I supposed to make friends?! I'm a very social and outgoing person so it seemed like a terrible fate to be living somewhere for a year with no friends except those that I met at work. Don't get me wrong here. I love my coworkers and I met some great people at training but most of my training friends are far away or busy as are my coworkers. Also, there are not many foreigners in my city let alone ones who are similar in age to me that I can relate to.
At first, I attempted to boldly face this problem head on going to international friendly places like Roppongi in Tokyo and even went by the navy base a couple of times. Every time I would without a doubt meet people. The issue was that I was not meeting the kind of people who could be my friends. A lot of them were Japanese guys trying to pick up an American or another foreigner looking to "get friendly" with someone if you know what I mean. I would strike up conversations with them and then would casually mention my boyfriend. POOF! They would vanish.
I got pretty good at occupying myself by traveling or shopping or gaming but I started to get restless and just wanted some more companionship. Luckily, my Aunt has an acquaintance over here who I met with. She was awesome to chat with and showed me around Tokyo. The best thing she did for me though was introduce me to this adventure club of foreigners. It's basically a group that allows foreigners to meet others in a fun non-threatening environment. I have gone to a couple of their events and met a lot of people some of whom I have started to really chat with. I hope that this will help me really make some connections.
I'm going on a trip with them this weekend on a hike and hot spring trip. I'll keep you updated on my friend success rate.

Cosplay in Japan

As many of you know from my other post, last weekend I went to a gaming convention in Tokyo called Tokyo Game Show. I must admit, one of the things I was most looking forward to was the cosplay. For those of you who don't know, cosplay is when people dress up as their favorite video game or anime character typically for something like a convention. I wanted to point out what I thought were some major differences between cosplay in the USA and here in Japan.
Disclaimer: Theses are all my observations from going to ONE convention. I in no way am claiming to be an expert on cosplay in Japan. Enjoy!
1.) If they are going to cosplay, they are going to do it RIGHT! All of the costumes I saw were beautiful and amazingly well done which is not the case in the USA.
2.) Stopping people on the convention floor is a big no-no. In America, I do this freely. Stopping and asking for people's pictures as I see them. Doesn't work that way here. All cosplay photos are taken in a separate location.
3.) Cosplayers are rock stars. No, literally. There were fanboys asking for autographs and professional photographers set up everywhere.
4.) Manners, manners, manners. You have to make sure you ask before taking pictures as some of the girls are actual models. Also, people stand in a line to take the best photos possible. No group huddling.
5.) Sexy! So, I was really surprised by how revealing and overtly sexual a lot of the female cosplayers were. They were wearing next to nothing and even when fully clothed were laying on the floor with their fingers in their mouths or imitating other very sexual poses. I don't know why this surprised me so much but it did. I thought cosplayers here were classier than that...oh well!
These are just some of the major differences that I noted. Enjoy some pictures!

What up giant robot?!

Just hanging out

To start people off, they would have their friends take a picture or they would take a picture of themselves.

Tokyo Game Show

This story starts with one of my parent lessons on Friday. I asked my student what she was doing this weekend. She replied that she was going to a video game convention. I had to keep my poker face and not completely geek out at her. "Oh, really?", I coolly replied, "Where is this convention at?" I hoped I could get some details out of her. She told me in Chiba. I lit up on the inside. Only two hours away from here! I explained that I'm also a video game fan and would love to hear more about it. We ended up talking about video games for 20 mins. Parent lessons ftw!
Anyway, my first response was to quickly post my excitement on facebook. I instantly got a reply from a friend close by that he wanted to come as well. We made some plans and I now had a con buddy :)
I started the day off early, catching a 6:23 AM train. We made our way to Chiba on a crowded two hour train ride. Luckily, Japanese conventions are much more organized than their American counter parts so we got into the convention floor at 10:15 only 15 mins after it opened which was impressive considering we were in a line that wrapped around the building. When we entered, we were greeted by the booths of many a great video game companies.

Here we are!!

Konami booth

Bandai/Namco booth where we stopped to see a game announcement

Sega booth

Square Enix Booth

X-box Japan

Birds eye view of the floor

It was an amazing experience! I got to see a whole bunch of games that are about to come out including: the new Halo, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter X Tekken, Naruto, One Piece, and Dragon Ball games that are coming out, Battlefield 3, Project Diva, Sonic Generations, and many more. I also got to see and play with the new Playstation Vita!
It was more exciting to be able to play the games! I played Soul Caliber V, Mass Effect 3, Dance Central 2, Michael Jackson Experience, and (the highlight of the day) Ni No Kuni the new Studio Ghibli game which was incredible. It was stunningly beautiful. One of the things that got me was how wonderful the music was. It really completed the game and I look forward to buying once an English version is released!

A small picture of the game. Shhh...I wasn't supposed to take a picture :p

Another highlight was seeing a vocaloid performance. For those of you who don't know, these are Japanese pop stars that are not real. The girls "sing" using a computer program and "perform" using holograms. It was quite the incredible experience to see one.

The picture does it no justice, sorry.

Next time, I'll fill you in on my experience with cosplayers at the convention.

Celebrating my birthday!

Last week was my 24th birthday. I was very excited and nervous to be spending it in Japan. I was excited because I'm in Japan! I thought I had some fun potential! Although, I was very nervous since I really don't know anyone here. I started the day off very well! I got a call in the morning from my boyfriend who showed me my presents over Skype! Then, I had to go to work. I had a FULL schedule! I literally was supposed to work from 1-8 straight. That's 7 50-55 min lessons in a row. Luckily, one of my students canceled right in the middle so I got a break. Happy birthday to me! I got myself a great lunch of sushi and finished off my day. Cleaning went by very quickly and I had the rest of the evening to myself. I couldn't really go out because I had work the next day. The first thing I really wanted was just some American food so I treated myself to McDonalds. Then, I went to an arcade, where the real fun started. Japanese arcades are amazing! They have everything. The most popular machines are UFO catchers, purikura, and rhythm games. I, however, had a mission. I came to play the Gundam POD game. The Gundam PODs are mobile suit simulators. You hop into a giant pod that a full projection system with all of the same controls as a mobile suit. You have two levers to steer and fire and two pedals to jump and boost forward. Here's a shot of the inside:

Amazingly sweet!

A screen shot as you push into battle

The pods from the outside

 I was really geeking out! Check out the video I took: (be warned, the following clip contains Heather being a fangirl which includes odd noises at times)

After playing the game a couple of times and using the rest of my money on rhythm games, I went home satisfied at my low key but fun birthday.

The real fun came a few days later on Saturday. My co-workers (and friends) took me out to dinner for my birthday. They asked what I wanted and I knew immediately: Pizza! We went to a nice Italian restaurant and got a couple of pizza and pasta dishes and ate our fill. We also had a nomihodai which means all you can drink. They had the restaurant staff surprise me with dessert and they surprised me with a gift!

My dessert had a sparkler on it!

Their gift to me was a yukata (summer kimono!)

I was so excited and floored that they gave me a kimono. This is one of the best birthday presents I think I may have ever gotten. It was a fantastic way to end my birthday abroad!