Travel Journal – Sunday 11/1 – 2010
No money, eating fish and joining a cult.
Well… now the day began with me waking up around 9:00, I was fully rested and my body seemed to have recovered. All my aches from flying where gone and I really felt alert and awake in most senses. So after lying in bed for just a few minutes and decided that I actually wanted to get up I got up and dressed and went into our kitchen so Drak, the sleepy head, could continue sleeping.
In the beginning I just went through my stuff and softened up a little then I went out for a walk. Just to refamiliarize myself with the surroundings in Kita Urawa and to walk in the park and get some exercise or something. In any case I was walking around for about an hour before I went back to the apartment where Drak still was sleeping. But soon after this Higuchi-san arrived to give us some information and take some money from us.
So I was talking to him and he informed me of everything I already knew but he was polite and gave the information in a very businessman-kind-of-way. Drak though didn’t have enough money so we promised to pay for him on the next day. But after this I was kind of broke so we went out to get some money. Drak got money, but for some mysterious reason, the same machine that worked for me last time refused my card to some mysterious “temporary service” which wasn’t working… temporarily.
So I borrowed some of Drak’s money and we got onto a train to look at something and find another 7-eleven and try my luck there. On our way to some more central part of Tokyo we stopped just because I felt for it since I saw so much Sakura1 everywhere and as soon as I saw the train stop outside a park I suggested we just jump off and take a look around. When we entered the park we found that there was… a festival there of some sort.
Loads and loads of people and children were sitting on blankets on the ground in the park and running around with sakura petals flying around is swarms. I have a picture, which I will upload later, where I have a handful of petals in my hand as is letting them loose in the wind. In any case we walked around, taking pictures and looking at people in all ages sitting on the ground with their friends or playing with each other. We also found that there were dancing on a scene with kimonos and old Japanese music in the background which we both filmed and took pictures of.
We soon left the park, about an hour or so after we arrived and went to Akihabara to browse around and to try and find a 7-Eleven. We had a hard time finding one though, walking around in the heat, it’s been sunny and quite warm today, and after a while I started to ask people instead. This actually didn’t help much other than I felt like I was more active or something. I came here to not only see Japan but to learn more about people and come closer to the Japanese culture. And by walking around with Drak speaking mostly Swedish isn’t helping me, or him, to get closer to the culture. Even so we finally got some help from a policeman that directed us to a 7-Eleven.
On our way there I called Miiko and we decided to go to a temple later today. In 7-Eleven I tried to take out some money again only to realize that the same message; “Service temporarily unavailable” still showed as soon as I inserted my card. I tried my other card too but both were refused. This is strange since both cards worked in China and I knew there is money on them. So I had Drak withdraw some money and then borrow from him instead and if necessary I would have to use him for this the rest of the trip and only transfer my money to his account instead. Hopefully though it’s only a temporary glitch or something but even so I should be able to take out some money in the post office tomorrow. Post offices are closed on Sundays we discovered and they are guaranteed to work for almost all cards. Otherwise I can always try a bank called “CitiBank” which also worked last time. The only problem is they aren’t common and I don’t really know where to find one exactly.
Well, we then met up with Miiko in Musashi Urawa to walk to the temple she wanted to introduce us to. Actually I had asked her in my first initial letter to have her introduce us to the Buddhist temple since I heard interesting things about it from another couch surfer she introduced last time I was here. The only way to see and experience all the fun stuff is to become a member which isn’t very harmful so I had decided that it would be fun. Drak agreed to this and we went to the temple.
As suspected no photos were allowed inside the temple but Miiko showed us around telling is about the temple and everything and it was quite interesting. One thing worth mentioning is that Miiko isn’t good at English. She is actually worse in English that before so we got to practice our Japanese quite much. Which was really nice. She also tried to speak Japanese with us as much as possible since she knew that we both wanted to improve our Japanese. Sometimes I didn’t hear what she said or couldn’t make out what she said but mostly I understood even though I didn’t understand everything.
I talked as much as I felt comfortable and tried to use my Japanese as much as possible but for some reason all my languages became a little… clumsy. It was like they all mixed together when I tried to form sentences. Even so I think that it went better than I expected and that I actually understood more spoken Japanese (real spoken Japanese and not anime-spoken Japanese) than I thought I would.
After the temple she wanted to welcome us to Japan by treating us to sushi. Yesterday Drak and I spoke about that. I had promised myself that if I go back to Japan I had to eat Sushi. If I were to eat sushi somewhere it was here. Now know that I’ve probably not eaten fish since I was 12-14 when people stopped forcing me to eat it since I hate it. Drak too isn’t really fond of fish but he agreed to this Sushi thing. So we went to a Sushi restaurant which seemed to be one of Miiko’s favourite places.
When we came there she was surprised by the number of people in the restaurant. There was two waiting rooms full of people waiting to be seated and more people arrived every minute. Even so we decided to take a number and wait to be seated. This restaurant was one of this rolling-band-kind of sushi. Where lots of different kinds of sushi is on small plates on a band and you take a plate if you like the sushi that is on it and then you keep the plate. The number of plates is what decides how much it costs. Most plates costs 100 yen each2 with some exceptions.
Well, while we were eating sushi, and yes I did eat sushi, it had started raining outside. I ate about 4-6 plates and about 4 of them had fish on them so I am quite satisfied. Actually it had started to rain when we went from the temple where we also got umbrellas. So now we had full use of them on our way back home to Kita Urawa by foot. We also decided to go to the Main Temple in our new ‘religion’ on the 28th of April and also to help Miiko move some things on the roof the 17th in exchange for lunch or dinner which is nice.
Well, now we’re going to get a bath – a well needed bath – and then we will go to bed or watch a movie or something. In any case, it will be fun go to an sento3 with Drak. But well, there is a lot of things that will be fun to see what he likes of them when experiencing them for the first time. Well, well…
Good Night
Hehe, eating sushi eh? So you ate 4-6 plates and some with fish, how did it taste then? was it good or were you just super hungry?
I was hungry but that wasn`t why I ate it.