Here's the next part~ (My roommate turns out to be cooking rice right now so I gotta wait)
After 3 days in Tokyo we headed off to Nagoya on a bullet train~ It felt like an airplane. We did not get reserved seats so we didn't get window seats so it felt even more like my flight to Japan in which I didn't know what was going on! XD Except my flight had a tv (oh yeah the flight to Japan the radio had sakanaction on it so I calmed my anxieties with sakanaction).
And then we got to Nagoya and finally experienced super packed trains! It was super crazy! Like Harajuku except instead of stream of moving people it's just shoving yourself into a small space. Not good for peeps who are claustrophobic, which I have learned that I am not (even though I was when I was little).
Then we got off at Sunshine Sakae and looked for our hostel. I was super worried that the hostel was going to be the same as my first hostel but even worse since it looked like we were in the redlight district since there were clubs everywhere near it, but it turned out to be a super cute hostel that felt like a dorm for elementary students since everything was bright and colorful with cute drawings on the walls.
Our inept member of our group was stupid and booked his hotels a month before he came so all the ones we booked were full (obviously they would be) and he had to stay at another hostel, despite not knowing any Japanese he traveled on his own most of the time (probably for the best though since he had to learn how to do things on his own and for the period of time that I have known him that is one thing he never does). So we had to wait for him to meet us and we decided to go to a ramen shop and I had ramen for the first time and the tonkatsu on top melted in my mouth! It was super good! We were there for lunch and the restuarant we were at had specials during lunch where you could get rice, extra toppings, or ice cream. I got extra vegetables and yeahh...it was already too much for me and then the vegetables made it very difficult to finish and I couldn't, but it was still good.
Also there was manga at the restuarant was convenient since I was trying to explain to my friend about what manga was good since she had never read any before and they were right there.
So that was a nice atmosphere.
From my time traveling Japan I have learned I don't feel comfortable in a situation unless there is manga, then I feel right at home! XD
Then we tried to walk to Nagoya Castle but were too late so we couldn't see it. Also on the way there I learned that Japan has like no trash cans anywhere. I picked up a piece of trash hoping to be a good samaritin but there wasn't anywhere to throw it away. No wonder this piece of trash exists! There were pet bottle trash cans by vending machines but I had a mcdonalds bag...and that would be bad to put it in there so we walked for around 30 minutes looking for a trash can and I had to ask random people for help and finally we found one in front of a convenience store...sheesh...I dunno how Japan is so clean yet has hardly any public trash cans...;orz
Trash in Japan is super difficult makes me really just want to throw my trash on the ground but I can't. It was nice whenever we were in a hotel that had only one trash can 'cause that meant they would sort it themselves and we wouldn't have to learn a whole 'nother trash system for each place we stayed at ('cause it's different everywhere you stay. I pretty sure Tokyo is the least strict 'cause when I was looking at the trash cans at the capsule hotel a lot of stuff was in the combustible trash can that should have been in the paper trash can, but Tokyo didn't have that)
Where I am staying there are about 6 different types of trash: Combustibles, non combustibles, pet bottles, plastic, metals, paper
I think there were only four or so in the places we stayed at in Tokyo: Combustibles, noncombustibles, pet bottles, plastic
'nyways....
Then we went to Sunshine Sakae
And the building with the ferris wheel for some reason only has clothes shops for men. Which is nice but also a weird situation to be some girls on a floor with clothes only for men! XD
But we went to another store and looked at some of their stuff, pretty expensive. But they had a Book Off which is a used books store and I bought Innocent~ :D But they only had one and the way the manga sections of bookstores are arranged are by the magazine they were published in and I only knew the magazine for Innocent since it was the same magazine as Tokyo Ghoul and Blue Heaven.
It was weird being a foreigner walking around there since everyone game me strange looks and I was super lost looking for the Young Jump section...;orz Which turned out was behind this wall so no wonder I didn't find it. Also the weird thing I've learned about used book stores is that everyone is standing and reading the manga there. It makes it easy to see who the readership for each magazine is. The yaoi section only had older office ladies and the shoujo section had young girls. The shounen sections were more mixed and the seinen sections had older men. Seeing demographics in reality is weird! XD
Then we walked to see a shrine:
We felt bad for being tourists...but whatev's it was nice at night~
On the way there, there was another small shrine:
I dunno what it was for but it was cute looking so I took a picture.
On the way back, despite the fact that my legs were dying and I hadn't eaten anything since the ramen we went to an arcade which had Dance Evolution~ :D The game I have been dying to play! I played and failed so hard at it but I want to play again one day (mainly 'cause I was choosing songs I kinda knew and not the ones I wanted to do since I had a time limit to find them and I felt nervous) and then some DDR! Then my legs died and we had to walk back to my hostel! XD
We saw some peeps practicing dancing in the glass reflections of the building which was what I had been wanting to see in Tokyo.
The next day we went on another bullet train to Kyoto~ (also these trains are super expensive...I don't understand Nagoya, I paid less going twice the distance to the small town I am now than I did from Tokyo to Nagoya...)
I sat next to a very good looking guy who I couldn't look at after the first glance! Too pretty! XD That's one thing I like about Nagoya and Tokyo. You just walk around and see gorgeous guys or visual kei guys at random. I only saw visual kei guys in Nagoya though.
I was also 'town shopping' 'cause my mom knows I will probably be living in Japan in the future but she thinks I won't want to live in a big city, but I still think I would want to live in Tokyo or Nagoya or Osaka. But mainly Tokyo or Nagoya. Being able to see a good looking guy every day is super nice.
We traveled during Silver Week which is when everybody goes out to the temples so this was a terrible time to be in Kyoto. However Kyoto was very tourist friendly so we got help about the bus systems which were confusing to us since we still didn't quite understand the subway system.
We were planning on traveling with the inept guy since he really wanted to see temples and castles, but because he is inept he decided to go drop his luggage off at his hostel, but he was too early (since he didn't look this up online earlier) and then for the first half of the day he got lost and went all over Kyoto looking for us when we were literally 15 minutes away from Kyoto station in the closest sight seeing area with a large Pagoda that you can see from the distance! It was ridiculous, so we ditched him and tried to do the stuff we wanted to do in the remaining time we had.
We went to Kinkakuji temple which I couldn't get pics of 'cause my ipad decided to peace out for a day. And then we tried to go Toji In temple but were too late but it's right next to a university and we got lots of help from the nice students there.
We were staying at Ryokan in Kyoto but we didn't quite understand how to get on there from the bus since it required getting on several different buses. All the peeps at the bus stop helped us get to our destination, it was crazy nice.
We got to our Ryokan too late to get dinner so we had to go a convenience store for food and they gave us bikes, but I didn't realize that I had forgotten how to ride a bike so that was pretty awful trying to bike on a street off the side of a cliff without falling down. I feel bad for all the screaming and crying I did in the night, but it was only like 6:00 so I don't feel that bad! XD
And the ryokan was super uncomfortable just 'cause we didn't know if we were doing anything right, but I checked with my Japanese friends and apparently we did everything right, we just felt uncomfortable about it. So our stay there wasn't the nicest and I dunno if I'd really want to stay at another ryokan...not unless I am with somebody who is Japanese.
So those were my adventures for those two days~ I liked Nagoya the most of all the places we went mainly 'cause it made me feel the most comfortable in Japan.
I liked Kyoto the least just because everything was old and tourist-y and inconvenient. Oh yeah! Kyoto was the worst about packed traveling. The buses were AWFUL. There were priority seats at the front for elderly, pregnant, etc. who deserved priority, and then everyone else sat in the back. But the seats were as packed as possible so that if you were in the back you had to scream that you are getting off and to please stop. Also even if you get the priority seats and get to sit down you have peeps breathing all over you. Or like for how this one lady probably felt, some gaijin throwing their bags all over her. Yeah I felt bad about it but there really wasn't anything I could since there was this one guy who kept shoving me on top of her...;m;
Again I was carrying a backpack and bag of clothes so I didn't really have very much room to move without hitting someone.
I am very used to packed situations now so I don't mind them at all and small rooms are totes okay since the first few nights in Japan I stayed in a cubicle! XD Honestly as long as I have room to lay down and stretch my legs, a shower, a bathroom, a trash can, and a place to put my things I am totes okay.
Next post will probably be the last about Osaka and Nara~ Now maybe I can go make some gyudon? :D
