Author: Chloe

day five: hiroshima

today was a lot both mentally and physically. mostly mentally, though. wow what a day. it started out with a two hour shinkansen to hiroshima. it was pretty cramped because i was sat in the reversible section facing cam, megan, and fabian. but the company was companionable and i enjoyed chatting with them.

when we actually got to hiroshima we went to a little center to get lunch. i got gyoza and rice which was really good. then we headed to the a-bomb dome. it was really surreal to see, especially considering how close to the epicenter of the blast it was. it was so close, within 600 meters, and yet there it stood still relatively intact. once we soaked that in it was time to go into the peace museum.

wow.

it was heavy. really, really heavy. reading the letters that parents wrote to their children, or older siblings to their younger siblings made me cry. they were such mundane letters, people expressing love and a wish to see each other soon, and yet it’s the knowledge of knowing that they never got to meet again. it’s such a tragedy, and seeing the horrors and atrocities that these people had to live through —less than eighty years ago, mind you— is insane. the suffering they had to endure, not only during the bombing itself, but for decades afterwards too is just-. i really can’t put it into words. and the fact that the u.s. decided to drop another bomb on nagasaki too??? horrific.

it’s weird to say that i ‘enjoyed’ the museum, because there definitely wasn’t joy involved per se. but it was an experience i’m glad i did, and it genuinely did make me stop and reconsider things. it offered pieces of history that i wasn’t even aware of, as well as modern history. i didn’t know that biden had been doing nuclear tests, but apparently the mayor of hiroshima wrote an official letter and implored him to rethink things, so that the atrocities that were seen in japan were never recreated elsewhere.

on a more lighthearted note though, following dinner me, belle, liam, esther, brody, vincent, megan, and skyler all went to the pokemon center. i managed to snag a really cool mug that had a bunch of dark types on it, as well as stickers of ditto and magikarp, a small dewott plushy, and a relatively large dragonite plushy for my older brother. but time was quickly running out and we didn’t have enough time to get a cab back to the station so all of us had to absolutely haul. ass. to get back the shinkansen station on time. it was rough not gonna lie, but so incredibly worth it.

the train ride back was a quiet one as we all kept to ourselves. i mostly reflected on the day’s events, and listened to my music. overall i did have a good day, but like i said by the end of the day i was both mentally and physically exhausted. tomorrow should be fun though since it’s our free day, and i can finally start spending a bunch of money!

day four: zen sesh and tea ceremony

we woke up so early today i can’t even THINK. anyway today started out with breakfast at the hotel, and then a bus ride to a zen meditation temple was how we began our morning. a monk guided us through the session where we had two fifteen minute meditation sessions.

i’ve meditated in the past, and honestly it’s not really for me. i feel like my mind is constantly moving, and it’s always too active to just calm down. i always find myself getting bored and can’t really push through that to achieve that zen state. but this time was actually pretty awesome. i felt myself getting into the zone, and really focusing on my breathing and the soft sounds of nature. when i noticed that my mind started to wander i asked the monk to whack me with his meditating stick (i totally forget what it’s called ?) twice in between my shoulder blades. this allowed me to feel more alert, but specifically in regards to meditating. it was awesome.

after that we headed to a temple (but not before accidentally forgetting skyler, whoops) that had 1,001 golden statues. they were all so intricately detailed and it’s said that one even looks like you. i managed to pick up a souvenir for my brother, and then me and jas headed out to the gardens to walk through them and take some photos. yuko still had us on a tight leash and quickly pulled us to the next area on our agenda.

we headed to a similar place near kiyomizu dera temple and walked the streets visiting less popular shrines, while the other half of the class participated in a tea ceremony. at this point i was starting to get a little cranky because i was pretty tired. but i pushed through because, honestly, how many times am i going to be in japan??? when it was our groups turn for the tea ceremony i wasn’t all too thrilled, because i’m not that big of a tea person either… i’m really 0/2 on these huh. the ceremony was lovely though, and we learned about wa kei sei jaku which means peace & harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility, which are the lessons to be learned from making the matcha tea.

following that we had plenty of free time to traverse the nishiki market. i got some beef skewers and they were so. good. ugh. i was hanging out mostly with belle, megan, and katherine and it was really fun! at one point sj got a wagyu beef skewer because he wanted to try it, but was willing to give the rest up to everyone else. unfortunately before anyone could have any katherine dropped it on the ground. it was super funny, but i tried not to laugh since i could tell she felt really bad about it. no harm no foul, but still pretty hilarious.

after that was bowling at round one, and i absolutely demolished during the first game. i played the best bowling game of my LIFE. with no bumpers either!!! unfortunately my winning streak ended abruptly and i never recovered. also me, belle, and megan were all pretty tired, and as lovely as waruni was, we really wanted to just go back to the hotel and sleep. belle won the second game, and in a surprise comeback waruni managed to steal the win from megan in the third and final game. all in all it was a solid day, but i look forward to what tomorrow has in store.

day three: temple run

i’m currently writing this at 9:17 pm, and i swear to god i could pass out at any given second. this long and eventful day started bright and early, meaning i had to wake up at 6 am, which is extremely early for me. i somehow managed to stay conscious long enough to get ready, eat breakfast, sit through a brief introduction with our guide, and then we were promptly on our way.

after a quick bus ride we were already at the kinkakuji temple. it was absolutely breathtaking. just walking into the entrance and seeing the main building was so beautiful. as much as i could have spent an entire day in the courtyard alone, yuko had a strict schedule to keep us on. we were quickly swept away to the main attraction: the golden pavilion. it was constructed in the 13th century and made from solid gold. the gardens and pond that surrounded it were gorgeous, and it was so cute to see the wildlife that lived peacefully there. walking around the entire stone path, at one point managing to lose a couple hundred yen trying to land a coin in a bowl, yuko lead us through the rest of the temple.

next up was the bamboo forest, and i was particularly excited for this one. not only was it going to be awesome as hell, it was also going to be shady and keep us cool from the suffocating heat and humidity. as we were driving there that’s when we all noticed just how many vending machine’s were posted up on almost every street corner. seriously. i didn’t realize japan happened to be the vending machine capital of the world or something, jeez. anyway once we got to the bamboo forest i was actually just floored. it was gorgeous. i could’ve gotten lost wandering around forever. however that was quickly dashed when yuko began dragging us along to the next stop.

following the forest was kiyomizu dera temple which was probably my favorite that we visited. between the traditional styled architecture, the bustling shops and stalls, and the gorgeous view of kyoto once you climbed to the top of the temple, it was just wonderful. as we were ascending the steps, and the hill (??? idk it was an upwards slope of stores) i saw so many things i wanted to buy, but again yuko had other plans. we quickly took a group photo, and headed up the rest of the way to the top of the temple. there was a lookout point that we could see all of kyoto from. the photos really don’t do it justice. once we were done we were allowed 30 minutes to shop around before meeting up for the next shrine. i stuck with belle, megan, and jess for this time and made notes for what i would come back for on our free day.

the final stop with yuko was the fushimi inari shrine. there are over 10,000 tori gates to go through, and that would take over two and a half hours which was time we didn’t have to spare. so instead we took the extremely abridged route, and only went through about two hundred. i liked the omokara ishi part a lot, it was a wishing stone and depending on how heavy the stone felt when you picked it up was an indicator of how likely it was to come true!

to round out the day we watched the demon slayer: mugen train movie, which was pretty interesting since i haven’t seen season one. i sat next to jasmine and kept asking her questions about what was happening and going on. it was very entertaining. then the class made the collective decision to get food at a malls foodcourt where we got to spend our first little bit of isolated time with toshi (my beloved). i got indian and received the largest piece of naan i’d ever seen in my LIFE. belle took a photo of me, skyler, and jess with each of our naan’s, which will stick with me forever.

day two: electric boogaloo

i started day two off on a much better foot than day one, not only had i gotten nearly 12 hours of sleep, but we had free time to do essentially whatever we wanted. so after hitting up the 7/11 for breakfast with katherine, checking out and storing our luggage, it was off to the races! a big group of us —jess, belle, liam, skyler, cam, megan, and i— went to the aquarium which was conveniently attached to the hotel.

once we got inside a few of us went on a pirate ship ride, which was pretty fun all things considered. after that though is when we really started looking around. there were so many cool fish to see; i really liked the ones that could camouflage to look like coral, the fluorescent ones, and the silly looking guys. after the tiny little fish we went to the jellyfish room, and i felt kind of bad for them since the tank was so small, but they looked really cool. especially because there was blue, pink, and green lighting that highlighted the jellyfish pretty nicely.

after the jellyfish exhibit we moved on to the larger sea creatures, like sawfish, leopard sharks, stingray’s, and a bunch more that i don’t even know the name for. and for some awesome reason they also had capybara’s which was actually sick. following that was an otter show which was potentially one of the cutest things i’ve ever seen. he did so many cool tricks and listened to his instructions so well!!

once we were done with the aquarium it was time to meet up with everyone and head to the bullet train so we could travel down to kyoto. the train ride was nice because i got to chat with those around me —jas, cam, megan, fabian, and jess— and also enjoy looking out at the scenery we passed by.

when we arrived in kyoto it was time for dinner, and i was pretty excited going into it. i knew that they were probably going to serve things that were outside of my comfort zone, but i was willing to give things a go. the first plate they brought out was… interesting. there was tiny raw squid, fish, collared greens, vegetables, and beef. i’m proud of myself because i ate both of the raw squids, but the best thing on the plate in my opinion was the beef. after that was raw fish, and i gotta be real, i am not a raw fish fan. next up was pork and vegetable hot pot, which was probably my favorite thing the whole night. following the hot pot was a salad which was standard, i enjoyed it. after that was shrimp that were in some sort of fried batter, and that was pretty good too. next up was this tofu gelatin thing?? i’m honestly not too sure, and frankly the texture was just not it. we had sushi after that, and since i’m not really a raw fish person, i wasn’t too keen on that either.

all in all it was a really solid day. i had fun hanging out with everyone, and despite the fact that dinner was touch-and-go, i still really enjoyed it. kyoto has very cool architecture from what i’ve seen so far, and i’m excited to go on the bus tour tomorrow!

day one: my first day !!!

waking up at 3:30 in the morning isn’t something that i would normally do, however, if it meant that i would be getting on a plane to go to japan? i think i could make an exception. i got essentially no sleep because i was so excited, but it was all worth it. my flight out of newark was pretty chill with no real hiccups to report, but it kind of sucked because i had a three hour layover in detroit. but once i got on my next flight, i was really off to the races. i spent most of my 12 hours reading, and unfortunately i only slept for about 2 hours.

here comes the fun part though, after my grueling flight i finally arrived! i got my bags out of baggage claim and made my way to the subway to ride to the hotel. it was pretty easy to navigate the subway system since it was just a straight shot. once i got to the hotel and checked in, me and katherine decided to walk around tokyo a bit until we had to meet up with everyone at 6. but this is where disaster struck… i had forgotten my rail pass at home. this was of course less than ideal, and totally threw a wrench in the plan.

after everyone else had gotten their rail passes we were released back to the hotel to get dinner. i decided to get beef curry and rice, and let me tell you, it was incredibly good. once i was done eating we went back to the room, and for funsies i decided to check my sketchbook to see if the rail pass was in it since my mom had said that she couldn’t find it.

the rail pass was in the sketchbook ???

despite being very lucky that i had actually brought it with me, i felt mortified that i had even done that in the first place. never. again. that was basically the last little bit of my day because very soon after i passed tf out. all in all it was a pretty alright day, definitely could have been better, but also could have been way worse. i absolutely cannot wait for the rest of the trip !!