Yes you heard that right! That saying means that my feet are totally tired.. so is my back, eyes, arms, legs, and yah every part of my body including my hair. I could barely drag myself back to the hotel. Today I went to Takarazuka ( beautiful ). I will have to tell you about my experience soon. Right now I am just jelly. A limp piece of seaweed. I just barely took a shower and feel like a human being again. I had almost decided to skip it, because all I could do was doze on the floor and not move. Anyways! I have to say Japan has enough stairs. I think we had this many where I came from, we'd never have to worry about 'going to the gym.' Japan is mega stairmaster!! Anyways I'm just getting silly cause I'm exhausted. I have another long day tomorrow!! Then maybe the day after that, I'll take a kind of relaxing day.. for catchin up on posts.
I'm here! Japan!
I have a heck of a long post coming. I decided not to put it up quite yet cause, honestly I am pooped and ready to rest. I have to wake at 6am so I can get myself roused, dressed, and at the station without getting hopelessly lost in a circle. Plus even if it's more expensive I was going to try the metro.. Who knows.. Anyways, no real pictures yet and I bought my ghibli tickets at the lawson's Combini. And a peach yogurt drink ( i seriously had no idea) which is my first drink in Japan this time. LOL!
Well I'll post later. Gonna hunt up some tissues and call it a night. I'm here!! Oh and I had some revelations about traveling alone as well. :) Oh and I think walking is really going to be hiking here.. It's tough going! Oh yah I got squished into a train. I was pressed against an older lady who was face into a glass window. I felt bad for her, but she continued talking to her traveling companion some how. People entered zen like state.. LOL.
First day of Japan trip
4/19/10 (Monday in the USA, Tuesday in Japan)
Around 10 hours and so many miles, till Japan. Today started rather early. I woke at 5am right to the sound of my dog clock, woofing “She’ll be coming around the mountain.” I was really tired and slept rather well considering normally I’d be too excited to even think about sleeping. Mainly it was the sheer fact that I haven’t been able to sleep for about 3-4 days due to a low hum of giddiness. It didn’t get me to pack any sooner unfortunately but lucky for me I packed relatively fast this time. I had a few indecisive moments where I couldn’t decide what to leave behind and take. I had to toss out some shirts and pjs, but everything fit nicely into my small roller. I even went through one repack to really get it jammed in there. I do recommend vacuum bags that don’t require a vacuum. You simply roll and squeeze out the air. Pretty nice and useful. I even have a minor space for souvenirs as well.
I got to the airport in no time, but I think it’s best to make sure you are their earlier than you think you need to be, because I had a small snafu that wasn’t even my fault. Computer error. I almost choked because I felt like the swat was going to pop out and shake me down for all I was worth! Anyways it was fairly smooth after that besides the horrors of LAX which was huge to say the least. Nothing is simply placed, even getting to international terminal is by bus and confusing to find the bus stop. Anyways I met a wonderful lady from Singapore and we glommed onto each other till we were able to get to the International terminal. It was consoling to find someone who was sympathetic to the cause of being lost in a strange place ( yes LAX is a strange place) and finding it easier to get lost together than alone.
On the bus, an elderly lady that looked almost like my grandmother came on toting gratuitous luggage. She decided not to sit and fielded her large unwieldy bags, unfortunately the bus stopped hard and she tumbled into my lap. I was standing and leaning against the luggage rack. I caught her luckily. Is that fate or what? It made me teary. I miss my grandma. I’m glad I caught her. I felt it was definitely an act of god that I happen to be right there to cushion her fall. Seriously I wanted to hug her because she looked a lot like my grandmother.
Anyways, much later I ended up at my terminal. I got to board nearly first after first class. I chose the two seater in the back online and I’m considering changing my seat if possible. Might not be at this point, but I’m hopeful. Also my seatmate never showed up, so I had two whole back seats to myself! Can you believe it? I kept seeing really old grouchy guys heading my way and was sure they would sit down next to me, but nope I lucked out! No offense to grouchy looking old guys. It was one of those things where you try not to be hopeful that you’ll be on your own, in case you jinx yourself! I didn’t stop looking for my seatmate till we had started moving already. It is slightly loud in the back due to ‘engine’ but I took absolutely no notice due to the awesome entertainment system, with latest movies (Asian and Korean), games, news paper, music, etc. A very awesome service. It also offers Korean audio language course! How awesome is that? My first show was “Teddy Bear’s Smile,” a Korean TV show. Looks good! Probably gonna watch princess and the frog too! Also a lot of space! I must have had a much older plane when I went to Korea or something. I had to fold myself into living origami to fit into the seat. I hope I get lucky on the way back! I mean just the plane alone and the awesome on board personal screens are enough to make me ecstatic and the seats were heaven! The whole seat reclined! I mean the whole thing, not just the back. And there were cup holders in the tray tables, in case you didn’t want to bring the whole tray out!
My stewardess was so nice and strong as well. She lived some rather large roller bags that really seem they should have been left on ground and ticketed as going under the plane, carry on or not. Anyways, I had dinner or lunch in rather short order right after some peanuts and drinks. I got to eat bibimbop (veggies, meat, with rice to pop in). As well as slightly sweet and spicy pickles. There was also a tube of hot paste, which wasn’t too hot and sesame oil. They also coupled it with hot seaweed soup, which I loooove. And also some fruit for dessert. It was delicious. I got asked twice if I knew how to eat bibimbop. I wonder if Americans tend to go for the salmon or non-ethnic foods. I appreciated their kindness in making sure I didn’t weird myself out if I weren’t familiar with the food. I also got lucky on that because I thought there was onion but it was really white radish. Lucky I tasted it and found out. Ha-ha. I keep saying ‘lucky.’ Unfortunately I don’t think I’m much of a writer, so if I put ‘anyways’ or ‘lucky’ too much, I hope you will understand my newbiness.
Anyways, that’s all for now. I’m going to sprawl across my two seats and enjoy some movies.
Later the same day around 7:30PM
I am pooped. I ran around in the rain, doubling back, trying to find my way to the hotel. I’m thinking they need a photo tour or something on their website. Lucky the information box had info on my hotel. The room was small but heaven sent and there are tons of shelves all over the place in the room. Glad for that. I’m not going to be happy sharing a shower or bathrooms, but I’ll survive I guess. Reminds me of being at camp. I also got my Ghibli tickets WOOT! I just put in the L number. Then you put in your name and a phone number. A Japanese gentleman wanted to use the machine, so finally he stepped in to help me with the machine. I got as far as the name. He turned me into Mary. Heh. But whatever, I’m going to GHIBLI! Tomorrow I’m going to try to go to Takarazuka at the crack of dawn. Well to get the tickets anyways. Well gonna go see if I need to go buy soap. Already dropped a wad of cash on an umbrella I won’t use at home.
Re: Just a thought!
Exhausted! And no closer to being ready. Seriously I'm very sleep deprived so if my post lack sense that's why. I couldn't sleep due to a low hum of constant excitement. And I'm really tired so it's not such a good combo honestly. Anyways I was going to pack today, but I still didn't. I slept late, washed my laundry ( finally a good thing ), and stupidly scoured the thrift stores for a cute purse to put my stuff in... Okay that sounds insane right? Well I wanted a little purse that was kind of like a minature version of the messanger bag, but only wanted to pay like a dollar or two. It was an unsuccessful venture. But I missed the Goodwill store.. so it's eatting me up to think my bag could be waiting for me at that thrift store. Yes I can obsess over the silliest things. I tend to get like that, where I get into something and take off running with it. Unfortunately I'm not so good in sustaining and finishing things. Like spring cleaning this year, is a draggy thing for sure. I have concluded my home is like the ocean, every time you build a nice sand castle, the tide deposits more sand and strange sea creatures leaving things messier than before.
Tomorrow is it! I better pack! Here I go!
EXCITEMENT
For the last few days, on the surface I’ve been kind of calm and partially organized.. but in reality I was up at 7:30AM ( VERY ODD for me!!) and bustling about. You might think that I was packing and repacking for my trip, it’s only few days away at this point.. Instead.. no. I am doing random things like laundry, cleaning, paying bills, washing dishes, etc. Am I insane or what. I realized when I was ferreting my vacuum bags up that OMG I NEED TO PACK! Or get to some semblance of packing!! Tomorrow, I’m starting laundry for items that need to go in the bag and yah, the actual packing. At this point I’m frantic with the thought of packing! Also the fact that I’m GOING TO JAPAN!! Eeeee! I know my excitement appeared to wane, but it was mainly because I was all cautious after getting e-stalked that turned into real life stalk! Creepy! Mainly I just don’t want my family and any kiddos to get hurt because I made someone lose it online. ( No I didn’t share my info, just my name was available and that was enough… Yes I called the police and reported… No, I didn’t curse at anyone or try to insult anyone…) Perception is a dangerous thing! Anyways it made me slightly paranoid now, which cut down my blathering a little bit. As you can see it’s making a resurgence due to sheer excitement!
I know I said this before, but really I love the feeling of before a trip! I hope I get to visit Japan again one of these days. I know I haven’t gone yet but I feel like I’ll definitely like it anyways. If you ask.. why? Well I don’t really have an answer for you. Everyone asks me why I’m going. Before I did want t go to visit my aunt and uncle there, but they are vacationing! So I’m just going for myself now.. And I really couldn’t give you some kind of concrete or logical reasoning. Also I realize I’m not really an otaku. I don’t read a fraction of the manga ( though I think I’d read more regularly if they had a manga lending library or I made more money ) and I’m not up on anime very much at all. I do like it, but like any movie or show, I have to be interested in the subject/story. And I tend not to be able to hang around for 200 episodes or anything. So I’m going to be a tourist, to kick the dirt off my heels and trade it for the soft moist air of Japan. To not be able to effectively communicate or read signs. To the excitement of travel, a new culture, a different pace of life… and maybe a little bit of magic in the air. Shinto has always excited me and thinking about the cute Tanuki that could be tricking a person at any given moment with their special mythical magic. Anyways that all still equals, no real answer to that question. Why do you want to go? Or why did you want to go the first time around? Unfortunately I think no one reads my blog.. so it’s rhetorical at this point. But I welcome your comments of why you want to visit Japan ( btw it’s okay to be otaku, as long as you have realistic expectations? ).
Anyways, I will consider this question in the days to come. But I guess you could say I have a deep wanderlust, a need to travel. And Japan was calling me!
Also DUST CLOUD GO AWAY FROM UK AND EUROPE!! I wanna meet an online buddy for Karaoke!! So she needs to be able to fly!!
Have Rain? Make Rainbows!
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