Making the Most of it!

So, there was an extra-long weekend in February (5 days!) because the department store where my school is located decided to close for 3 days for elevator maintenance (I think). It meant the week before was crazy busy with make-up lessons, but it was nice to have a long break. I spent that Sunday and Monday relaxing: did a little shopping and cleaning, got a haircut, studied Japanese and played Pokemon while drinking coffee at a cafe. I was still recovering from a cold, so it was nice to spend a couple days without speaking. There was one episode where I decided to walk to a Don Quijote that Rodney had told me about (Don Quijote is a big supermarket chain in Japan that actually has a decent selection of imported foods). He had only ever seen it by car or scooter but estimated that it would take about 40 or 50 minutes to walk there. After 2 hours of walking, with a good portion of it being through a snow-slush mixture that hadn't melted or been shoveled from the pathways, I finally found it. The options there were pretty limited compared to other Don Quijote I had visited, but I bought some chocolate, supplies to cook dinner, and a pair of dry socks and continued on my hike. When I checked the map on my phone it turned out I was closer to the station in Totsuka than I was to Fujisawa. So after more than an hour of hiking I arrived in Totsuka and took the 10 minute train back to Fujisawa. Long story short, what I thought was going to be a 2-hour shopping trip (tops) turned out to be an entire afternoon hike. But that did plant the hiking bug in me.

On the Tuesday I had off I went to the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno. I actually managed to wake up early enough to get there at a reasonable time, then stopped by a Starbucks that's in the same plaza. The museum is actually a lot larger than I had anticipated: I only went through one building, but it contained pretty much everything I was interested in seeing. The displays were in chronological order, which made it pretty interesting to walk through and see how art in Japan developed. There was even a painting depicting the arrival of westerners in Japan and it was funny to see how they were all painted with huge noses. The highlight of the museum was really the gift shop though, where I bought a real wood-block print. It wasn't too expensive, and it's really beautiful, so I didn't mind the cost.

A picture of the print that I bought, which is now safely wrapped up in its tube. Since a separate wood block is made for each color in the painting (like a stamp), it makes this picture that much more impressive. (This is what I spent my Christmas money on, Nana!)

The Tokyo National Museum and the fountain in front of it.

A flowering tree outside the museum.

The hike to Don Quijote made me want to do some "real" hiking, so I made plans to hike up Mt. Tanzawa which is about an hour and a half away from Fujisawa. Unfortunately with the heavy snow the week before it didn't look like it would be possible. Instead I went hiking in Kamakura on a short trail between two shrines. It didn't take very long but it was still fun and afterwards I went to Hachimangu, the main shrine of Kamakura.

The shrine at the beginning of the trail.

The main building of Hachimangu shrine

On another weekend, I met Cheryl in Machida, which is about a third of the way to where she lives from Fujisawa. We took a bus from the station there to a squirrel park (called Machida Risuen, or literally "Machida Squirrel Park"). It was the first time riding the bus for both of us, but it turns out to be a lot easier than one might expect. Once you get there, there's a small entrance where the park has some rabbits and guinea pigs (and one prairie dog) that you could feed using vegetables that were being sold out of a small stand (except for the prairie dog, since he was already pretty big). After going through a small room we entered a large outdoor area enclosed by a net and containing a ton of squirrels. The squirrels were not shy at all and would leap up on you to see if you had sunflower seeds. A pack of sunflower seeds cost about 100 yen and throughout the morning we probably bought 5 of them, haha. Well, one pack was lost when a sneaky squirrel stole the bag out of Cheryl's hand and dumped them all over the ground. Overall though it was a unique and incredibly enjoyable experience that I recommend to anyone reading this in Japan.

The squirrels were rather friendly for the most part.

The result of a stolen bag of seeds: The squirrel equivalent of a house party.

The squirrels would even let you pet them as long as they were paying more attention to the food on your glove than they were to you.

On the following weekend, following after my interest in wood-block art, Cheryl suggested we go to a special exhibit of prints at the Tokyo Edo Museum in Ryogoku. The exhibit was pretty interesting, though a bit smaller and a lot more crowded than I had expected (granted, it was the last day of the exhibit and it was a Sunday). Most paintings were at eye level for the average Japanese person and there was no buffer distance to keep people back, so even catching a glimpse of some of the paintings required standing on your toes and dancing back and forth to find a gap. There were some really beautiful prints there that weren't at the Tokyo National Museum though so I was glad we went. We picked up some postcards at the gift shops (yes, more than one) and then took another train to join Rodney and some friends to watch an ice hockey game. This one was quite exciting with a comeback victory by the team we were somewhat-arbitrarily cheering for.

The weekend after that, I went to visit Cheryl in Yamanashi. We started our Sunday by packing a yakisoba lunch and heading out to a plum garden. In Japan, everyone eagerly awaits the blooming of the cherry blossoms. However, about 4 to 6 weeks before the cherry blossoms bloom, the plum blossoms bloom, and they're also really neat to look at. We drove to the small park, which was on the side of a hill, then walked past a handful of merchants selling plum-related products (from whom I later bought a bottle of wine), and into the garden. Due to the alternating snow and sunshine in Japan lately, the flowers seemed a bit confused. Some trees hadn't sprouted buds yet but some others were halfway-blooming.

Plum blossoms. I'm glad I remembered to bring my actual camera for this trip.

Cheryl standing between two trees.

The same two trees, this time with us being too nervous to ask someone to take our picture for us.

I think these are just another color of plum blossom, but I could be wrong.

After the plum blossoms, Cheryl and I went to a movie theater to see the second Hobbit movie. Some differences between American and Japanese movie theaters:

• Tickets are expensive (~$18), but food is cheap (~$3 for popcorn).
• The seats are big, support your head, and have cup and umbrella holders.
• The steps are tall so that the person in front of you would have to be freakishly tall indeed to block your view.
• You reserve your seat when you buy the ticket: you choose on a computer screen or touch screen where you want to sit.
• There's a rack full of cushions for children to use as a booster.

After the movie, we used Cheryl's phone to hunt down an okonomiyaki restaurant. Okonomiyaki is kinda like a pancake made almost entirely out of cabbage (there's a little egg, flour, etc. in there to keep things together of course). You can add a meat of your choice to it and it's absolutely delicious. We were the only customers in a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, but the one guy working there was friendly, spoke a few words of English and even pulled out a map of the U.S. so we could point out where we're from.

And that should pretty much bring you up to speed on my recent adventures. Thanks for reading!