Golden week is still shining

I'm baaaaack! :) Monday morning I returned from one of the most memorable trips of my entire life: Golden week in Japan. 8 days, 5 cities, amazing friends, excellent food, unbelievable sights and memories that will last a lifetime.

It began early Sunday morning as I made my way to Hakata Station in the heart of Fukuoka city, about an hour away by train. There, I met two other Lattitude Volunteers, Michelle and Heather, who made their way over from Ashikaga (the MOST exciting, I hadn't seen them since the Tokyo orientation almost two months before). The day started out right at Krispy Kreme for a matcha green tea donut. We spent the day roaming Fukuoka city and stumbled upon some really excellent experiences.
We started at Sumiyoshi-jinja, a small shrine packed into a city corner. Here, we fished for our fortunes and caught glimpses at a traditional Japanese wedding. We gave in to temptation and followed the wedding party to get a better look. The bride was absolutely stunning in her white watabōshi with her smartly dressed groom at her side. Following that, we walked to Canal City, a popular shopping area complete with "Ramen Stadium" and a dressed up Ironman to take pictures with. We also took in the sights of Kushida-jinja while snacking on one of my favourite Japanese sweets, daifuku! We continued our journey at Tocho-ji temple that houses the largest wooden Buddha statue in all of Japan. The statue and intricate background of miniature carved Buddhas was breathtaking. The five story pagoda just outside the main temple had some serious beauty as well. To complete the day, we went underground to Tenjin underground shopping center....where we struck gold: free samples. Japan is huge about o-miyage (oh me ah gei), souvenirs that staff members bring back to the office from their travel destinations. This means that stores compete like crazy for the tastiest treats of their region to win o-miyage sales. It also means free samples. Michelle and I went nuts "sample shopping" and scored ourselves two glasses of wine, a small cup of noodles, bagel bits with cream cheese, rice crackers various cakes and fruit jelly....ah...may....zing!

While the girls were in Iizuka, we made a trip to Nanzoin for the bronze reclining Buddha, still as captivating as the first time I saw it, and of course I had to introduce them to my baby....TRIAL. We spent a couple of nights relaxing in each others company and preparing for the hustle and bustle of the next few days. Also for your enjoyment - the Nanzoin temple muscial bridge! :)

Tuesday morning we packed our bags and headed out to the Fukuoka Airport and boarded a plane to Osaka.

After a delayed plane, a long ride from the airport into the city and buying the Osaka unlimited day pass (good for 28 attractions and unlimited subway travel) we finally arrived in Osaka around 3:30pm. We quickly dropped off our bags at the Hana Hostel promising to be back before 10pm for the international party (our day pass made us miss the cooking portion of the party...not so pleased with that series of events). To get the most of our money, we sprinted to the first "free" attraction: The Santa Maria boat cruise around Osaka Bay. Next door is where the famous Osaka Aquarium is, but at 2300 Yen each not covered under the pass, we had to skip it. Also next door is the Tempozan Giant Ferris Wheel, standing at 112.5 meters high and complete with a transparent cabin!
After that, I finally had my first Onsen experience at an open roof Onsen with multiple different baths and a series of saunas (one with a sugar body scrub!). It was heaven. No wonder we ended up missing the end of the international party, oops. I don't regret it though. Back at the Hana Hostel, we met Taichi and Kimmy, a volunteer and a staff member. We joined them for dinner at a small tucked in restaurant along with Tom, James and Simeon, volunteers from Nagoya. It was a great experience to enjoy dinner in a Japanese restaurant recommended by local guys who ordered the best and cheapest stuff!

The following day, Taichi showed us a nice place for lunch and ended up joining all of us for a walk around Osaka city. He showed us around and had a fun time shopping and sight seeing with us. We visited Amerika Mura (a region of the city designed to be like the United States, Statue of Liberty and all) and Dotonbori Street, a marvelous cluster of shops and buildings flashing with signs along the Dotombori gawa River. Dotonbori is famous for a heck of a night scene, awesome takoyaki (one shop even has a singing and dancing octopus out front) and the Glico man always posed for a photo.
There is also an AMAZING store along Dontonbori called Don Quijote composed of 8 floors of absolute amazingness, including an entire section devoted to matcha flavoured chocolates and candy! The pocky was particularly tasty :)

The train to Kyoto that night was, in the nicest terms, ridiculous! Michelle left with a nice bruise on her back from her bag being squashed into her body and I can't remember the number of times I said sorry for hitting innocent bystanders with my backpack as I tried to get it onto the overhead storage space. Regardless, we arrived at Kyoto station and walked to our hostel, K's House, with barely enough time to meet Michelle's friend Alisa for kushiage dinner. Kushiage, or as referred to from a quick google search as "Japan's most dangerous meal" and it certainly is. 2000 yen for all you can eat do it yourself deep frying. This restaurant also had a chocolate fountain that I took serious advantage of. I was rolled home that night like Violet Beauregard after she'd turned into a blueberry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4_cf_fZDc0.

The next day, Heather and I broke into a pair of rented bikes and took to the streets of Kyoto early morning headed for the "Path of Philosophy", a beautiful pathway lined with multiple shrines and temples just around the corner from Kyoto University. We made it back to the Hostel to meet with Michelle, Colin and Christian (fellow backpackers at K's House) and Taichi (he came to Kyoto from Osaka to join us traveling!) and headed out to the marvelous city of Nara.
 Nara, famous for it's unbelievable Toudai-ji temple housing the enormous Buddha statue and for the numerous tame deer that just...live there. Nara now holds a special place in my heart, and not just because of the multitudes of food stalls lining the street during busy golden week. The Daibutstu-den Hall at Toudai-ji, the largest standing wooden structure (and to think it was rebuilt at 2/3 it's original size!) and it's grounds  are simply beautiful. If that didn't take the cake, the Buddha statue puts everyone in awe because of it's beauty and size. There were also a lot of women wearing beautiful kimono that I couldn't help but snap pictures of when they might not have been looking. I took the opportunity to indulge in okonomiyaki, grilled meats, red bean paste cakes and grilled sweet potato. Amazing!

Friday was spent cycling all over Kyoto. I already miss the landscape, the city is simply gorgeous! I could lose myself in those mountains forever. We rented bikes from our hostel and met with Tom and James again who stayed an extra night in Osaka. With Taichi as our guide with his iphone GPS, we enjoyed the scenic back roads of Kyoto: my favourite couple hours of the entire trip.

We first took off to Fushimi-Inari Taisha Shrine, the unbelievable shine composed of thousands of orange torii gates, all donated by Japanese businesses, that form a walk way up the mountain to the main temple area. If you've seen "Memoirs of a Geisha", you'll recognize this place. It quickly became one of my favourite places I've visited in Japan without considering the great blessing O-mikuji that I received at the shrine. lucky me!
We caught a parade on the way out of the shrine area as we rode our bikes towards Shimogamo Shrine for Yabusame, traditional Japanese horseback archery!


Finally we met with Alisa again at Kyoto's famous Kinkaku-ji Golden Temple. The temple stole the show shining gold among the green trees. A close runner up were all the kimonos! I couldn't help it but become the "creepy kimono stalker".

For dinner, Alisa took us to an Indian restaurant in Gion where she works. I was too bold and ordered a level 3 spicy chicken tikka...and set my mouth on fire. I also enjoyed every minute of it because it was followed by matcha ice cream and the rare spotting of Maiko, an apprentice geisha walking the streets of Kyoto!!

Friday night we'd scheduled a night bus from Kyoto to Tokyo. Only...I made the mistake of thinking the bus left at 11:30pm when it actually left at 11:00pm. So I take 100% of the blame for the bullet speed packing, running...wait...sprinting for a taxi and the panicking. Luckily Taichi was still with us and figured out all of the details to get us to the right bus stop and on the correct bus. Thank goodness for him. I'm sure the other volunteers would agree he was an absolute blessing to have with us for this trip.


Naturally, Tokyo was a roller coaster ride of through crowds, clothes, music, food, crepes, buildings and street signs. This was amplified twenty times during golden week. Harajuku was so busy we could barely walk down a street without separating from each other. Tom and James couldn't make it to Tokyo with us, but we met up with the Tokyo volunteers Zac and Jon as well as two other volunteers Matthew from Hiroshima and Syeda (she previously volunteered at the Iizuka hospital and is back for her second time!). Together, we roamed Tokyo through crazy Shibuya station crossing, hung out at Yoyogi park, found a Cinco de Mayo festival (the smell of Mexican food was heaven in my nose holes) and went shopping in Harajuku.

Another wonderful thing was that I was able to meet up with Haruna, my friend I'd met in Cambodia last August who lives just outside of Tokyo! She got along so well with the other volunteers and we had a great time exploring Shibuya all together. We had dinner at a kuru kuru sushi restaurant, conveyor belt style where you order on screen and the sushi is shuttled to your table. Amazing! Such a good experience...and so cheap!




That night, Michelle, Heather, Haruna and I slept in an internet cafe. If you're ever in Tokyo, it's worth it to stay in one of these for the experience. Essentially, they're buildings of rooms set up for gamers/manga readers/drunkies who've missed their last train home. The rooms are tiny with a computer and small bed, but they also sport all you can drink non alcoholic beverages from a vending machine. For 1500 yen (about 18 dollars) for a night I definitely got my money's worth when I ordered one of every drink available.

The last day in Tokyo was spent hanging around Ueno park, buying sweet potato ice cream. renting a swan boat (and crashing it into Heather and Jon's boat) and exploring Akihabara, the electric district of Tokyo.
I had a particularly rough night making my way alone to the Narita International airport that night and sleeping on a bench waiting for my 6:10 flight back to Fukuoka.

Now back in Iizuka, Golden week is still shining bright in my memory. I had an amazing time and experiences that I will never forget!

 Back at the hospital, my last few days on the N7 are running smoothly. English class with TOEFL studying doctors continues once a week and today I observed a hysterectomy, appendectomy and breast cancer surgery to come home and complete my 25th run!

I'm on a roll and I hope it never stops turning.