JUNE 16
Currently waiting to board the plane to Toronto. Canadian exchange 2013!
JUNE 19
I think I speak for everyone when I say say the best part of the trip so far is interacting with native Japanese people. They are SO polite it makes me feel guilty. People shouldn't say thank you when they hold a door for me! That should be my job! It's way less intimidating than I'd anticipated to intiate conversations in Japanese. The hard part is responding to them once they've responded to you, because they speak so fast! But I'm proud of us for connecting with people at the zoo, on trains, in parks, etc. And of myself for compromising with a waiter to create a vegetarian meal at lunch! And of the zoo for housing so many amazing animals, including baby monkeys :) I'd never seen a live panda before today! Another highlight of the day for all of us was interacting with dozens of Japanese school children in Tokyo. All their pointing and giggling at us Americans made us sort of feel like the zoo animals, but I think we like the attention. It's really so cool to connect with the people we see on the streets of Tokyo. We've talked to people from 9 years old to 90 years old. We've also met up with a lot of people in Tokyo that we know from various walks of life. I had a ton of fun reconnecting with a graduate of our sister school that none of us had seen in 4 years. And Barnes Senpai, of course :) Well I'm pretty sure I'm the only person awake at this hour in the entire youth hostel... So またあした！
I think I speak for everyone when I say say the best part of the trip so far is interacting with native Japanese people. They are SO polite it makes me feel guilty. People shouldn't say thank you when they hold a door for me! That should be my job! It's way less intimidating than I'd anticipated to intiate conversations in Japanese. The hard part is responding to them once they've responded to you, because they speak so fast! But I'm proud of us for connecting with people at the zoo, on trains, in parks, etc. And of myself for compromising with a waiter to create a vegetarian meal at lunch! And of the zoo for housing so many amazing animals, including baby monkeys :) I'd never seen a live panda before today! Another highlight of the day for all of us was interacting with dozens of Japanese school children in Tokyo. All their pointing and giggling at us Americans made us sort of feel like the zoo animals, but I think we like the attention. It's really so cool to connect with the people we see on the streets of Tokyo. We've talked to people from 9 years old to 90 years old. We've also met up with a lot of people in Tokyo that we know from various walks of life. I had a ton of fun reconnecting with a graduate of our sister school that none of us had seen in 4 years. And Barnes Senpai, of course :) Well I'm pretty sure I'm the only person awake at this hour in the entire youth hostel... So またあした！
JUNE 21
Nikko could not feel any more different than Tokyo. We were shocked to not be surrounded by a sea of bodies at all times. Truthfully Nikko feels like kind of like an Austrian ski village to me. We are so happy to be surrounded by green mountains! And for it to be rainy and cool for a change. These mountains look like they're straight out of Gorillas in the Mist. I kept hoping we'd see a monkey while we were in the forest, but alas, we're not far enough North in Japan to see monkeys :( but I've really enjoyed Nikko so far, getting to be cozy and catch up on reading and bond as a group over the potential of spirits surrounding all the old Buddhist temples and monastaries and telling ghost stories together. This place has such a naturey and spiritual feel. And our hotel is awesome! We were very excited to have our first tatami mats. We also had so much fun talking to dozens of Japanese school children at the Nikko World Heritage Sites we visited yesterday. They practiced their English and we practiced our Japanese and they even gave us some paper cranes! I'm really looking forward to our next two days here, experiencing historic reenactments at Edo Wonderland, bathing in an onsen, and getting to explore more of this cute town, especially going shopping at the Hello Kitty store down the block :)
JUNE 24
The bad news: No monkey sightings and no bear sightings :(
The good news: I found five adorable kittens at a bath house we went to! And around ten ducklings following their mother. And our current hotel has a resident cat living here. And we've seen a frog and some cool bugs. AND I discovered Japanese sprite-flavored ice cream at an ice cream stand we randomly came across in the middle of the forest during one of our hikes, it was quite well-deserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment