Today our guest blogger is none other than Anna herself writing about her recent trip to Japan. Enjoy!
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| One of the Big Buddha statues we visited |
As I'm sure a few people here have heard already, I went to Japan last month. My school organizes a trip to a different country every year and anyone is allowed to go. We had a group of about 40 people plus 6 or 7 chaperones. The first major hurdle of the trip was the flights. Since our group was so big, we couldn't get everyone on the same flight. So, while 20 or so people got to take a direct flight on ANA to Tokyo, I had to fly Air Canada to Toronto, wait for 2.5 hours, fly 14 hours to Narita, and then drive an hour to Tokyo. Eventually though, we got there. Our first hotel we stayed at was very nice but very small. I could reach my entire body across the two beds and touch both walls! One of the main defining features of Tokyo is the amount of people that live there. The high volume of people results in buildings being built more vertically with smaller rooms. Oftentimes, it's actually very difficult to find restaurants or businesses that are actually on the ground floor. There's usually some weird staircase in a place you wouldn't expect that actually gets you to the place.
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| Lots of ice cream! This one was milk and matcha flavored. |
Over the course of the trip, we saw a lot of temples and shrines. There are two main religions in Japan: Buddhism, and Shinto. There were tons of cool buildings and statues among all these religious places, especially the big buddha statues, or, as our British tour guide would say, the Big Buddha. (Pronounced buh-duh). Our tour guide, Katie, was amazing. she would get just as excited, if not more excited than us to see cool things. If we had a bit of a longer bus ride for the day, she would call us up to the front of the bus one by one to interview us on the bus microphone about how our trip was going so far. On top of all the sightseeing, we also got a lot of free time to just explore the area. One of the things that was very very easy to find was soft serve ice cream, which was very nice because it was about 85 degrees and VERY humid the entire time we were there. There were tons of fun flavors of ice cream everywhere, such as white peach, black sesame, matcha, sweet potato, and soda. (Yes, soda was a flavor).
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| These are the famous torii gates. Donors get to write their names on these gates for good luck. There's over 10,000 torii gates at this shrine!! |
One of the highlights of the trip though, was all the different foods we got to try. We had hotpot, (which we had to get to through the lobby of a karaoke place) lots of noodles, (had to walk through a convenience store to get there) And my personal favorite, okonomiyaki. (Located under the train tracks. the building sounded like it was about to fall down every 5 minutes, but it was well worth it for the food lol) Okonomiyaki is a type of food that you cook for yourself in the restaurant. There was a grill in the middle of the table, and we got a bowl of batter, shredded cabbage, sliced pork belly, and a raw egg. And the way you cook this is by mixing all the ingredients together and making a huge pancake on the grill. After it's all cooked, you douse it in Japanese mayo, and five-star sauce. This was easily the best meal that I had the entire time, because it felt like a family dinner. I got to cook the food with all my friends, and then we all got to eat and enjoy it around a big table.
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| One of the puppies at the dog and cat cafe that was kind enough to let me hold him. |
We went to multiple different cities during the whole 9-day trip. We went to Tokyo, Fujinomiya, Kyoto, and Osaka. We took buses to some places, but surprisingly, our most common transportation was the public train system. Everything was very clean and organized, and it was very easy to navigate, even for a foreigner. Our most exciting transport though, was the bullet train. That's right, reaching top speeds of 200 miles per hour while balancing on a metal beam, the famous Japanese bullet train system! The whole process was actually really cool! Again, everything was very neat and organized. One of the big things to note about the bullet train system is that it doesn't stop at every station. You buy a ticket for where you're headed, and it takes you straight there, no stops. All of the trains still pass through the station though, so every 5 minutes or so, again, the building sounds like it's about to collapse. We got to hang out on the platform while we were waiting for our train for about 30 minutes, so we all figured out the timing for the trains. A train would come through every 5 minutes, each train had 13 cars which were a bit longer than the average subway car. Since the majority of these trains were heading straight through the station full steam, it would take about 6 seconds for the entire train to get all 13 cars through the entire station. It actually felt a lot like an airplane, just less turbulence and no seatbelts. You can check out the bullet train video to get a better idea.
Our last day in Japan was spent in Osaka. The most noteworthy things I did in Osaka consisted of going to an Italian restaurant that had tropical fish aquariums everywhere, (had to walk down a flight of random stairs in the street to get there), and the Osaka Ferris Wheel. Now, this isn't just any old Ferris wheel, it's an oval shaped, constantly moving, 15 story high Ferris wheel they decided to put onto the side of a 12-story gift shop. At first, my friends and I thought it would be a great idea! That was probably one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. The first red flag we didn't see: you have to climb up 3 flights of stairs to actually get to the part where you get on the Ferris wheel. Red flag #2: the whole thing moves very slowly. It moves constantly so people can get on and off easily. That of course, heightens the experience though. And red flag #3: it's not a normal Ferris wheel carriage, it's a pod with nothing underneath, that's attached to the frame by its side. The whole bench contraption rotates around so you can get in, and then shifts back to face the street so you can see the view. The actual inside of the pod moves so that you stay upright, but it wasn't very well greased, so as we were going around the bends in this thing, the entire bench we were sitting on would start leaning a bit, and then it would jerk back to level out again. My friends and I were so nervous we started singing to distract ourselves. Overall, the whole ride was about 30 minutes. It was cheap, and I got a good story out of it, but if you have any regard for your life, I wouldn't recommend it.
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| Outside of the ferris wheel |
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| our view from 14 stories up... |
Overall, I would 100% go back to Japan if given the opportunity. The whole trip was probably some of the most fun I've had in my life, and I got a once in a lifetime experience out of it. The one thing I would try doing differently would be to try a larger variety of foods. I feel like I got the more tourist-oriented restaurants, which wasn't bad, but they were all selling the same things. I loved seeing all the sights and natural landmarks like Mt. Fuji and enjoying the bathhouses. All of the locals were also very nice and polite and tried their best to accommodate us as best they could. The only thing I would change is maybe not going on the Ferris wheel next time.
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| Our view of mount Fuji from our hotel window! |
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