Okinawa

Last weekend, I went to Okinawa with the ALT from Oyama High School. We left on a Thursday night from Haneda. On Friday, it was raining really bad. First, we went to Kokusai Dori. This road is lined with lots of souvenir shops and restaurants. When walking, I found something so strange. Apparently, in Okinawa, they make a type of alcohol that has poisonous snakes inside the jar. I was so shocked when I saw this. After this, we went to the Japanese Headquaters during WWII. It is an underground tunnel. Since it was raining and we were tired from the flight, we didn't do too much on the Friday.

On Saturday, we took a bus tour because public transportation on the island is really limited. Our first stop was Ryukyu Mura. This place is a recreation of an ancient Okinawan village. This place was so cool. We got to watch a lot of performances, but I didn't really know what was happening. It was interesting to watch though.

These are some of the performances.

This buffalo was making something by walking in circles. I can't remember what though.

After visiting Ryukyu Mura, we went to the Manzamo cape. It is beautiful here. It was crazy windy though.

Next, we went to the aquarium. The massive tank inside is really cool.

Outside the aquarium is a beautiful view of the sea. We took a lot of pictures here. The water is so blue and clear.

Finally on our tour, we went to Fruits Land. There were a lot of plants here, but the awesome part was we got to feed animals. It was so much fun. We were given sweet liquid, and the birds flew onto our hand and drank the liquid. After this, we found goats, and we got to feed them leaves. It was my favorite part of the trip because I really like animals.

On Sunday, we went to Shuri Castle before our flight. Actually, the entire castle is rebuilt, so I was a little disappointed. It wasn't what I was expecting. After this, we ate chili cheese fries from A&W and then caught our flight. By the way, taco rice is the best food on earth. I bought so many boxes to brings home.

Concerts

The past week, I went to two concerts in Tokyo. The first one, I went to was Crystal Castles. Crystal Castles plays lo-fi music that sounds like it has been done on a home recording. The music is reminiscent of 80s arcade music. The band only consists of two members. One of which is a girl vocalist and the other is a man who produces the music. It's a Canadian band, so I wasn't surprised that most of the people who came were foreigners. Actually, I happened to accidently run into some friends who live in Tokyo at the concert. The stage presence was really dynamic.

The second concert I went to had three bands that played. The first band was Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. They were a bit over the top. Sparkly silver costumes with unwashed hair seemed to be the theme. Their music quality isn't bad. Actually, I quite like listening to their CD in my house, but their stage presence had me a bit dismayed. They seemed more worried about being eccentric than composing music. The second band I watched was Deerhunter. The lead vocalist is Bradford Cox. His side project is Atlas Sound. I was lucky enough to see Atlas Sound in London. I enjoyed watching Deerhunter more though. Their music is beautiful. I really like all the distortion and pedals they use. The noise seems really soothing somehow. Also, I really like the lead singer because he suffers from Marfan Syndrome. This is a disease some members of my family have inherited, so I enjoy seeing someone who has suffered from such a serious disease achieve such great success. The final band was Blonde Redhead. I have already seen this band before, but I wasn't disappointed the second time. The lead singer is actually Japanese. Her name is Kazu Makino. I think she is beautiful. Her voice and her presence are so enchanting when she is on stage. Both times I saw her I wished that I could be her. Her presence seems surreal. Unfortunately, I had to leave halfway through her performance to make it to the last bus on time because I had school the next day. There were almost entirely Japanese people at this concert. I was really surprised because it had been almost entirely foreigners at the Crystal Castles concert. None of these bands are Japanese, so I wasn't sure why there was a discrepancy in the attendees nationalities.

Soon, I will be going to I'll be going to ATP's I'll be your Mirror. It's like a one day festival with Godspeed you Black Emperor headlining. Also, I would really really like to go to the Foals concert, but I want to find someone to go with first.

Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, so some of my friends came to Gotemba for us to celebrate. Since it was during the week, my Japanese friends were busy with work. Japanese people are always so busy. They work really long hours. All my foreign friends leave their teaching jobs around 4, but some of my Japanese friends don't leave until 11 or 12. Usually, they only have time to meet on the weekends. It's such a big cultural difference. We went to yakiniku. Almost all of my foreign friends love yakiniku. I think foreigners like meat a lot more than Japanese people. One of my friends got me a really cool present. I really, really like the kuroneko symbol. I think its so cute. The mamma cat is carrying the baby cat with its mouth. It seems really loving to me. My friend had this t-shirt specially made in Canada. I was so happy when I opened the package because every time I see this logo, I feel warm and bubbly inside.

China: Dec. 28-Jan.2

On the night of Dec. 27, we took an overnight train from Xian to Shanghai. On December 28, we went to the French Concession and Nanjing Road, which are shopping areas in Shanghai.

Nanjing Road

On December 29, I went to the Museum of Modern Art. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The museum was really well done. In Japan, the Kyoto Museum of Modern Art is way better than the one in Tokyo. The one in Tokyo actually isn't modern art, but more like 1900s art. Below was my favorite display. It had all these intricate parts that moved and then lights made shadows.

After going to the museum, I was going to go the history museum, but I made a huge mistake. A girl asked me to take her picture. She said she was on vacation from Northern China. Her and her friend seemed really nice. She said that she wanted to practice English, so I agreed to help her practice for awhile. They said they were going to watch a tea ceremony, so I went with them. It was such a bad mistake. I had to pay a lot of money for tea.

View of Shanghai

Oriental Pearl Tower

Next, I went to the aquarium. They had this cool conveyor belt walkway surrounded by tanks.

On Dec. 30, we went to Yu Gardens. This area is very cool. If you go, you should definitely pay to get into the gardens because they are beautiful. On the night of Dec. 30, we took an overnight train from Shanghai back to Beijing. On Dec. 31, I went to the Natural History Museum. It was very interesting, and there was almost no one there.

On the night of Dec. 31, we ate Peking duck. Actually, most of the food we had on the trip was bad, but I think it was because we didn't know where to go. After eating the hot pot on one the first nights, my friend refused to eat Chinese food after that. The only other Chinese food we ate was on the two tours, and it was really poor quality. We ended up eating Pizza Hut 4 times and McDonalds 3 times. We decided to not do anything for New Years because we were so tired. Actually, my friend fell asleep at 9 p.m. On Jan. 1, we slept in really late because we were so exhausted. After that, we went to Chairman Mao's Mausoleum. You could see his body through a crystal coffin. You weren't allowed to take bags in, so we took turns waiting for the other person. It was so cold outside. Finally, on Jan. 2, we went to the airport at 5:45 a.m. I was really happy to return to Japan.

China: Dec. 27

On December 27, we took a tour to the Terracotta Warriors. First, we visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. I wanted to go inside, but unfortunately, this wasn't included in our tour.

After this, we went to a museum where an old town had been unearthed by archaeologists. This was interesting. They had also uncovered lots of burial spots. Then, we were taken to another state-run jade shop. After this, we were taken to a state-run factory where terracotta warriors were made for souvenirs. I was really excited to see the terracotta warriors because I saw the exhibition when it came to the British Museum.

At the Factory

This is the man who accidently discovered the terracotta warriors when he was digging a well. Now, he just chills, signs books, and takes pictures with people.

Terracotta Warriors

China: Dec. 26

On the night of December 25, we took a train from Beijing to Xian. We slept in a soft sleeper car, so we had beds. Once we arrived in Xian, we spent the day exploring the city. China is full of buildings that are falling down, some abandoned and some not. I thought it was especially like this in Xian. This city was so old and dirty compared to Beijing and Shanghai. I thought the pollution was worse here too. During the day, we went to the Bell and Drum Towers.

There are so many of these scooters everywhere. They always drive on the sidewalks too. I think there must be a lot of incidents of pedestrians getting hit and injured by these scooters.

This is some of the garbage that sits everywhere along the streets and sidewalks of China.

This was the only clean area in Xian. It was the city center. This is a view of the Bell Tower.

This is the Drum Tower. The inside was really cool.

There was a drum demonstration at the Drum Tower. These are held about 3 times a day.

After visiting the Drum and Bell Towers, we wondered through a huge market. The streets were like a maze.

View of the Drum Tower at night