a day of rest
how i spent my day
i stayed home today, because my knees/feet are dead, and i have a huge day tomorrow. i am going all the way to nagano, which is 177 kilometers (110 miles) away as the crow flies. i am taking a shinkansen (bullet train) to get there, so the trip is only about an hour and a half. the train i am taking tomorrow goes 260 kilometers per hour (160 mph). once there, i am going on a tour that among other things visits the jigokudani monkey park, a place where monkeys bathe in natural hot springs. i am told there will likely be fewer monkeys this time of year, because they come down to the hot springs more often in the coldest months. but i have also heard that this is the time of year that there will be baby monkeys. i have heard that it is totally possible that i see no monkeys at all, as it all depends on whether they feel like coming out or not.
the tour also includes a lunch, a sake tasting tour, and a visit to zenko-ji, a temple built in the year 642. this temple contains a statue that is a secret. apparently no one has seen the statue since the year 654, including the head priest of the temple. supposedly the statue is the first image of buddha ever brought to japan.
i didn’t go anywhere or take any photos today, so i will use this post as a place to just throw random assorted observations i have about my trip so far.
the trains are not that complicated. i would even say they are easy.
advice i have heard from youtube and other people is that the trains would be a nightmare to figure out and i’d make all kinds of mistakes and get lost all the time. at least in tokyo, that isn’t true at all. the first day was kind of overwhelming because i was a fish out of water and have never engaged with any kind of train/transit system before, but it is pretty simple and easy to understand, especially with google maps. seriously, all the signs are in english and all the train lines have a unique color associated with them so it is very easy to locate the right place to go. with the exception of shinjuku station, as mentioned in the previous post.
google maps will plan your entire route for you. it will show you multiple possible train routes to get where youre trying to go. you can even tell it to prioritize things like “least walking” or “fastest time” or “least expensive.” It will tell you what station to go to, what platform the train is on, show you the color associated with the line you are trying to take, when the trains depart (with easy buttons for if you missed it and need to see other departure times), which car is the best one to get on for the easiest transfer to the next train, which train to take next etc. it is extremely easy to understand and i am kind of confused about why people led me to believe this would be a nightmare. it took one day to figure it out.
you can just go on google maps and put in your end destination, like for example “tokyo skytree” and it will say “walk to this station, the station is pretty crowded right now. then take this line, the color is orange, it leaves from platform 2 at 9:53 am, there are 11 cars on this train, the best car to get on for an easy transfer to the next train is the 6th car. ride 4 stops (here are there names) and get off at the 5th stop, xyz station name (the train will announce its arrival at the station by name in english), then follow signs for the next line, its color is light blue, take the train on platform 1, it leaves at 10:24 am, ride 6 stops and get off at xyz station name. then leave from the southwest exit (there are signs in the station in english pointing to the southwest exit). it is all perfectly laid out and very easy to understand. and if something comes up and you miss a train during your trip, you can easily look at all the departure times and pick the next one.
i imagine it might get a little more difficult post-tokyo, because i’ve been told there will be less signs in english the further from tokyo i get. but that remains to be seen. even without english i feel like it would be pretty easy to understand since the trains have a color. if i need to take the line that has the orange color, could just follow the orange signs to get to the right place.
Japanese netflix is so much better than american netflix.
it just has everything. you could genuinely save a bunch of money just having the one streaming service and using a vpn to bounce around to various countries and get access to the content that is spread across several streaming services in america.
japanese people are so fashionable!
i follow a couple youtube channels that are english speakers in japan interviewing people on the street in various areas of japan. all the people that appear in their videos are so well dressed, i assumed many of the interviews were staged. but (at least in tokyo) absolutely everyone is incredibly well dressed. its kind of crazy to see! i mentioned this to my japanese friend, and he had a really interesting response. he said that because japan is not very racially diverse compared to a country like the usa, so people express themselves with fashion a lot more than in america. i also told my airbnb host that i feel like everyone is so fashionable here, and she said that in japanese society, a lot more importance is placed on how you are seen by others, so people always bring their best in public places.
this trip is the ultimate reminder that i am in horrible shape.
the amount of walking i’ve done in the last 2 weeks is almost certainly more than the entire previous year, that is not a joke. i am not a very active person. i’ve always been a homebody. so jumping into this vacation had a price that i was not nearly as prepared for as i thought. my feet and knees are in pretty constant pain. i gotta do better.
japanese food is my favorite food, but man do i miss albertos.
there is a mexican food restaurant like 100 feet away from my house back home that i go to often, and i didn’t think i would miss it being surrounded by my favorite cuisine all day, but i was wrong. i miss it!
i kind of expected food portion sizes to be much smaller than in america.
i sort of thought the average plate at a restaurant in japan would feel small to me. there is kind of a meme about americans being fat and eating too much, and i kind of thought i’d order meals at japanese restaurants and feel like it wasn’t enough food. that isn’t true at all. most of the places i have been, the portion sizes have been much larger than i would even expect in an american restaurant. particularly noodle dishes. the ramen places i have been give you massive bowls that feel like a ton of food.
“unsweetened tea” is an understatement.
i am so used to the types of food and drinks common in america, that when i bought a very popular tea drink here, i found it kind of disgusting. i bought one of these at a vending machine, because it is in nearly every vending machine i have seen in tokyo, and i have seen tons of people with them since i got here. i figured it had to be good. but to my over-sugared american palate, this tasted like dirt to me. not a fan at all.
japanese dominos pizza is the most unhinged thing i have ever seen.
they have pizzas with the following toppings available at dominos japan right now:
chocolate
strawberries
tapioca
powdered sugar
condensed milk
corn
rice cake
mayonnaise
that’s all i can really think of right now. sorry this post doesn’t have much going on. tomorrow is gonna be lit though.
