vending machines

In Japan, there are vending machines everywhere. Mostly, they have drinks. They have names like bikkle, dekavita, pocari sweat, and boss coffee. The drinks can be heated or chilled. usually, they're in cans or bottles, but some drinks machines fill up a cup. Drinks machines can have anything in them. Popular kinds of drink machines are pocari sweat, coca cola, boss, and suntory. You are almost never 500 feet from a drinks machine. Some drinks that we like are qoo, which is apple juice, morninga, which tastes like pancakes, and grape squash, which is carbonated grape juice.

Things that I will miss from japan:

1. vending machines
2. shinkansen (bullet trains)
3. warm weather
4. Japanese friends
5. sweets and treats

Things that I will be glad to have at home:

1. Snow
2. cheese
3. forests
4. friends and family
5. being able to understand the language

Kyoto part 1

About two weeks ago, we went to Kyoto. We rode on the Shinkansen (bullet train) super express. It took about an hour to get to Kyoto. We met Teji, my dad's colleague at the train station and got a ride to our apartment. It was nicer than our apartment in Hamamatsu, but a little smaller. Kyoto is the cultural center of Japan, so there are many temples, shrines and interesting places to visit. Kyoto has over 1,500 temples, so you are always close to one. Down the street from our apartment, there was the Kyoto Handicraft Center. We decided that we would have to check it out one day. We decided to go to the Imperial Palace Park. It  was a beautiful park with a palace in the middle. We discovered that the park was huge, and walked nearly the whole length. Another day, we went to Nijo castle, a big castle that was supposed to have nightingale flooring and secret body guard rooms. Whenever you took a step inside the building, the floor squeaked! This was so no one could sneak up on the shogun. There were many paintings on the sliding doors of animals, like eagles and tigers and some trees and plants. The pictures were very beautiful. After we went through the castle, we walked through the gardens. There were many small ponds and interesting plants and trees in the garden. On another day, we went to the golden pavilion, a temple covered entirely in gold leaf. You couldn't go inside, but you could get a good look from across a small lake. A brochure said that the first floor was built in eleventh century residential style, the second in the style of warrior aristocrats, and the third in traditional chinese style.  There were magnificent gardens all around the temple, and you could walk through them. At the end, we went back to our apartment to have many good adventures another day.

Moat at Nijo castle

Guard house at Nijo castle

A gate at Nijo castle

Bridge at the imperial palace gardens

Golden pavilion

Phoenix at top of golden pavilion

Ryugashidou

Cool rock

Cave roof

"Golden pillar"

Stalagmites

Supports

"Curtains"

Small Pillars

Stalagmites and stalagmites

Flowstone

On Sunday, we decided to go to Ryugashidou caves. First, we took a 45 minute bus ride. Then we had a picnic lunch. Then we bought our tickets and went in. Just before the entrance, there was a display about bats. The first thing that we saw was the golden pillar. The cave was amazing! The top curved, bubbled and twisted. There seemed to be endless pockets. Below us was a small stream and recesses where there were stalagmites and stalactites. This went on until we got to two slabs of rock with a small crevice between. We saw lots of flowstone, which is a smooth, rounded rock which grows like a stalagmite except faster. It was covered with a thin layer of water. Halfway through, there was a huge waterfall called the golden waterfall. After that, there were amazing things like the waterfall climb of the jellyfish, world above the clouds, and the phoenix hall. The phoenix hall was amazing. It was a small dead end near the exit. The whole place was filled with amazing stalagmites and stalagmites. The end was connected to a gift shop. We bought some chocolate rocks and left. I hope that we can go back soon.

Nakatajima Sand Dunes

At the beach.

Hunting for rocks.

Here are some pictures of me at the beach. There were many interesting rocks. I think that the sound of the waves rushing over the rocks is neat.

Some interesting water smoothed stones we found.

12 things in Hamamatsu that are different from home.

1. Kids walk to school.

2. There are drinks vending machines everywhere.

3. Kids wear slippers inside school.

4. Eel is the specialty here.

5. People drive on the left side of the road.

6. One teacher teaches everything at school.

7. There are tiny cars. 

8. People speak Japanese.

9. Books are read top to bottom, right to left, and back to front.

10. Power plugs have only two prongs.

11. Houses are very close together.

12. I have not seen any squirrels, rats, or really any wild animals besides birds, bats and insects. 

A School day in japan

Hirosawa elementary school.

The gym

First, kids go the shoe room to change their shoes. During the school day, kids wear slippers to keep the floor clean. Next, kids go to their room. Japanese school is different because kids stay in the same room all day. Then there is a class for about one hour. Then there is a ten minute recess. This pattern continues until lunch. Food is brought into the classrooms and the kids serve. Every day we bring a bag with utensils and a cloth napkin. After lunch, there is cleaning time, as there are no janitors. Then there are classes until the end of the day, which is about 300. During the day, I usually work on assignments from home during regular classes and go to gym and others. One kid in my class speaks very good English, so he helps me understand important things.

Getting There

Looking down at the ground over Hokkido

On Tuesday night, we left for the airport. We stayed at a hotel so we could get up in time to catch the airplane. Our Chicago flight left at 6am. The two hour flight landed at 7am Chicago time. We had almost four hours until the flight to Tokyo left. When we finally boarded the 777 jet, I thought it was huge. I got a window seat. The flight was thirteen hours long, so we had a long time to wait. The planes entertainment system was amazing. Each seat had its own screen. You could pick from a list of movies or games. Also, there was a camera on the bottom of the plane so you could see what you were flying over. The plane took us over some great lakes, over Canada, over Alaska, over the Arctic Circle, over Russia and finally landed at
Narita Airport. A funny thing was that the day moved with us, so it was always light outside. It landed at 1:30pm Japan time, which was about midnight CT time, so we were exhausted. I couldn’t sleep on the plane.

Our traditional style Japanese guest room. Futons on the
floor and pillows filled with plastic beans.

After going through customs and immigration, we took two different trains to Hamamatsu, got settled in out room, and had dinner. An odd thing was that just as I was getting settled on my futon, I didn’t feel tired anymore. This was because it was now morning time in Storrs. After a while, I finally got to sleep.

Shopping for Supplies

Yesterday we went shopping for supplies. In Japan, one Yen is about one cent, so 100 Yen is about one dollar. In Japan, there are 100 yen stores like dollar stores in the United States. They have all sorts of things from pencils to Frisbees. One interesting thing is that the cashier only has to count the number of items and multiply by 100 Yen to get the total price. If you didn’t know about the value of Yen, it might be confusing to look at a bag of Ramen and see the number 200.

A interesting tofu tray.

Another interesting thing about Japan is the food. Rice is huge in Japan. It is served with almost every meal. Also essential are fish and vegetables. Seaweed is also common.

After shopping, we went for lunch. We went to a restaurant called Sukiya, that's signature dish is beef over rice with fried onion. It is like the McDonald’s of Japan. After lunch, we came back to our house. We were very tired.