Yokohama Kankou

Sightseeing around Yokohama!! This Saturday was our first real day sightseeing around the city we've been living in for a month now. Pretty crazy, huh? Yeah. We've been busy
We started the day out with a trip to Sankeien, an amazing Ancient-Japan themed garden. They have lots of really old buildings and temples that they moved from Kyoto and other places (old cultural relics. How do you move an entire building? I don't really know but I'm glad we're able to enjoy them!! haha) The park is pretty large, with a small mountain/large hill, lots of trees, some small streams, a big lake, tons of flowers, etc. It's gorgeous. It was one of my favorite places last year, and gong again this time just re-enforced it's loveliness in my mind.
What was really fun, though, was that we met up with one of our students there! Kazune! She's super adorable, very fun, and a pleasure to be with. We wandered around together for about and hour and a half before she had to go to work. Becca, Joy, and I stuck around for another two hours, wandering, enjoying, and loving the beautiful scenery.
I wrote two haikus while there, too (with rough translations by me. I'm not really sure what exactly some parts mean. :p haha)
すずしくて
かぜがふいてる
へいわあり

Cool,
the wind blows
and there is peace

こわかった！
しぜんのなかで
くもをみた

Scary!
While out in nature,
I saw a spider.

After Sankeien, we went and visited Kazune at work. I bought some lovely presents for myself: a combination set (a pair of plastic chopsticks and a metal spoon in side a case) with super cute pokemon print. This way I can be Eco and not use and throw away plastic and wooden spoons and chopsticks. Plus it's super cute. Also got a box of Pokemon bandaids, and a bunch of Tissue packets with Rirakkuma on them. Haha. The cuter the tissues, the better they work!!

By that time it was past 1:00, and we were starving. Thus, we headed off to the ramen museum. Yes, it is a museum to ramen. And yes, it was pretty much HEAVEN. The basement is a recreation of 1958 Tokyo, with extremely narrow streets and stuff. really fun atmosphere. We went to two ramen shops and ordered their mini bowls (about half size) so we could eat at more than one place. The first place we went to was amaaaazing~! miso ramen is SO TASTY. this one also had a TON of oil in it. There was seriously 1/4 inch of oil floating on top of the ramen. And of course, since it was SO TASTY I drank way too much and felt sick for the rest of the day, haha. We wandered around the ramen shop area for a bit, then headed back upstairs to the main floor and, as a sign so nicely pointed out to us, back to the future.
Upstairs they had a small exhibit about interesting ramen facts and stuff, but we mainly hit up the gift shop. I bought a pen-- a useful souvenir that will allow me to enjoy the Ramen museum for years to come. :p

On the way back to our eki, we stopped by a conbini and bought Coolish-- an AMAZINGLY DELISH ice cream snake. It's like a milkshake in a bag. And you squish it until you can suck it up through the top. And it is SO GOOD OMG. your hands get SO COLD (they even have a warning on the bag, haha) and the vanilla flavor tastes a lot like home-made vanilla ice cream and sticks to the top of your mouth. That is pure joy, people.

Before reaching the Eki, we all agreed we had to pee. But public bathrooms are hard to find in Japan, and the ones in the station usually smell. SO we put Joy's travel experience to good use and looked at a map, located the nearest hotel, and made our way towards it. We walked in, and were IMMEDIATELY outclasses. Here we are in jeans/capris/tshirts and backpacks, and about five people wearing ball gowns walk past. Hahahaha. But we sneak in, find the public bathrooms, which were INSANELY NICE and smelled like roses. I took pictures. It was a super high-class bathroom, haha.

We made our way back to Yokohama and went to the Port Opening Festival Bazaar by the stadium. We were hoping to find Taiyaki (bread shaped like fish with anko in the center!!) but they didn't have any :( we did enjoy the different stalls though. Joy bought herself a classy read bag (I spoke many good words to her about it :p but it is super classy and a great price!!) and I bought a necklace of dark grey pearls. Very lovely.

then, exhausted, we started our way home. We'd bought an all-day train/chikatetsu (subway) pass, so we took the subway as close to home as we could. We walked out of the ground into the light and THERE WAS OUR BUS ABOUT TO LEAVE so we hurried and got on haha. Talk about perfect timing!

We got home exhausted and just sat doing nothing. It was a great day, but OH SO TIRING. Haha.


+So I promised a post about the rock-band dentists. Here it is! They're called GReeeeN. And yes, THEY ARE DENTISTS. According to wikipedia, they've all passed their dentistry exams, so I'm assuming they are currently practicing or will very soon. But the three of us were just astounded by the concept. Never, NEVER in america would you find a band that was popular, making a ton of money, but decided to have a "regular" career, too. No way. People would drop dentistry and run off to be "rich and famous"

And now let's say that some band DID decide to have a day job and be a rock star. Even if they WANTED to keep their identities a secret, there is NO WAY THEY COULD. Srsly Japan, WHERE IS THE PAPARAZZI?? It's so crazy how different celebrities are treated here I guess! No one EVER asks idols about their romantic entanglements. haha. WHAT WOULD THE TABLOIDS PUBLISH???!

Anyway. I just think that is way cool. I want them to be my dentists. They have really good music too; you should look them up.

Also, I've been trying to upload pictures for the last 40 mins. Silly facebook. it had 50% done and then the next time I checked in said 17%. It went back in time, I suppose.

My wallet got lost/stolen a while ago, and I've been trying to reach my credit card co fr a while. Turns out the number they have on the website can't be reached from a payphone, but is tollfree from landlines. Lol. Oops. Well anyway, I had my dad call for me because I spent 10$ on international calls canceling my debit card :p Anyway, it eventually turned into a three-way speakerphone conversation. Me on Skype, my dad in Person, and a lovely nice lady on my dad's telephone. Haha. It was exciting, and we finally got everything taken care of. BIG stress lifted from my shoulders, there.

Oh yeah, And I can't post something without telling everyone how awesome my students are:

They're awesome guys. Soooooo awesome.

Jejira

PS. Anberlin in awesome
PSS. Warp Tour. I am going with me sister-- Never Shout Never!! SO excited!
PSSS. My life is awesome, guys.