Taipei! (December 21-22)

First stop was Taipei. We weren't originally supposed to go to Taiwan, but it turns out it's very expensive to fly out of Japan, and Taiwan was a cheap jumping off point to the rest of Asia.

I tried very hard to do everything ahead of time, but inevitably I was packing on the morning of the flight. Actually, I had to run to Sannomiya to buy the bag that I was packing everything IN the morning of the flight. It's an awesome backpack with lots of pockets and cool things for traveling. I met James at a coffee shop, and then we were off to the airport bus.

The unfortunate thing about taking a bus to the airport, is that sometimes there is traffic. And sometimes, you get on the bus that already takes an extra 15 minutes or so because it has to make a detour to pick up people on a nearby island. And sometimes, you have just come from a coffee shop and didn't think to "go" before you got on this bus that's about to hit traffic on top of the extra 15 minutes. This was one painful bus ride. About an hour into it, I decided I couldn't take it anymore, and James had to run up to the bus driver and beg him to make a bathroom stop. It's quite embarassing being the only one jumping off at an unplanned bathroom stop, cuz everyone knows it's your fault that it's going to take even longer to get to the airport. But we got there.

So blah, blah, customs, security, airplane, 3 hours, Taipei.

We got to Taipei and headed for the hostel. I think we took another bus. We couldn't understand the airport bus driver as he was yelling out the names of the stops, so we just kind of assumed we'd somehow end up at the correct place. As luck would have it, our stop was the very last stop on the line. We didn't realize the bus had stopped for good, so we sat there like dumb foreigners for a moment until the bus driver yelled at us. We stood at the train station for a minute and decided the easiest thing would be to take a taxi the rest of the way. So we did. We stayed at a hostel called The Meeting Place, which is sort of a misnomer in that it's kind of difficult to find and there's not much going on around it, but the inside was beautiful. They had a huge open area with comfy couches and a large projector screen for movies, also a kitchen area and a bunch of tables for eating or skyping or whatever. I guess people are supposed to meet on the inside, not the outside :) The people who worked there were incredibly nice. We got in kind of late - around 10 or 11 pm - and I didn't even have to ask before the guy gave me directions to the nearest night market to get some food.

This is where we went.

The night market was a fairly short walk from the hostel. There are about a billion night markets in Taiwan, and they basically consist of a bunch of food stalls and little shops selling clothes, toys, souvenirs, and pretty much anything. At first, I was a little paranoid about walking around, as I had been reading entirely too much about southeast Asia and it's pickpockets and whatnot, but it turns out that Taipei is a really safe place. Not quite Japan, but not anywhere near as sketch as other countries can be. After spending some time at the night market, we realized the people of Taipei are REALLY nice. We had had a lot of trouble in China with people being pushy and rude and not leaving you alone when you are shopping, but in the market, I nearly fell over from shock when someone approached me about buying earrings and I said "no thank you" and she just walked away. Amazing.

I ate some candied strawberries and a hotdog on a stick that was covered in potato and then deep fried. You can choose whatever sauce you want with it, and I got it with some kind of honey mustard-ish sauce. There was some other food I kind of wanted, but I was a bit overwhelmed with everything, so couldn't really decide. James got some guava, and it was really good. I also bought an awesome belt, but forgot about the whole bartering thing and, while I got the price down a little, I totally paid too much. But by paid too much, I mean I got it for less than $10, so I wasn't too worried about it.

We finally headed back to the hostel, stopping along the way at a 7-eleven for a bit more food. The guy at the hostel gave me a look for eating 7-eleven noodles instead of the noodles at the night market, but I didn't care, I was tired. We asked him about things to do for the next day, and he recommended going to this famous museum, but it turns out we would have to wake up early to go there, since it was about an hour away by train/bus, and it's a large museum. We decided to sleep in instead (it's vacation, after all), and went to Taipei Main Station to have a look around before we had to head to the airport again. I bought an onion pancake from a street vendor guy, and we had an amazing lunch at a pizza place called Alley Cats. We didn't really do anything particularly exciting, just wandered, and then we found the bus back to the airport. We were coming back to Taipei at the end of our trip for a longer period of time, so we figured we'd do our sightseeing then.

Cool building next to the night market. I think it's a museum/temple thing.

Onward to Thailand!

The Epic Journey: 5 Countries in 3 Weeks

For the past 3 weeks, I have been on planes, trains, boats, tuk-tuks, and automobiles, finally experiencing the result of 6 months of planning. I traveled to a total of 5 different countries: Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Cambodia. I had Christmas on the beach, New Years under the Petronas Towers, imitated Angelina Jolie at Angkor Wat, and made a total fattie of myself everywhere. Without a doubt, as silly as it sounds, my favorite part of my trip would have to be the food. Not only was I pleasantly surprised by an abundance of my Western favorites (Chilis, California Pizza Kitchen, and TGIFridays, oh my), but southeast Asia happens to have some absolutely amazing food, and I was there to eat it.

I'm going to split up the tale of my trip- one blog entry per country -to make it easier to read and easier to write.

First, Taiwan........

Happy New Year!

It. Is. Cold.

This morning, Tomogaoka had their opening ceremony to start the 3rd term of the school year. They didn't bother to use any space heaters because the ceremony was supposed to be very short and we didn't need them. When we finally left the assembly, I couldn't feel any of my toes or fingers. :(

This cold weather comes as a bit of a shock for me, because I have spent the last 3 weeks in Southeast Asia (multiple entries about my trip to follow! :) ), where the temperature during the day is over 80 degrees. Being warm in December is amazing.

Holy cow it's November ALREADY?

It is cold. I don't like it.


Waking up in the morning is starting to get more difficult. It's all warm under the blankets and it's all cold in my room. Not cold enough to turn the heat on yet, but it's getting there. Sad face.
Summer didn't last long at all and I'm already looking forward to spring :)

Yesterday was "Open High School" at Tomogaoka where middle school students came to see the school. They will have to decide which school they want to go to for high school and take entrance exams in March. They were only there in the afternoon, so I only saw them around during my Eiken classes, so they weren't too much of a disturbance.

Other than that- bleh. Winter.

Shanghai World Expo 2010

On Friday, October 15, the Boyfurendo and I ventured to Shanghai to see the 2010 World Expo. We left work early, had some McDonald's for lunch, and caught the bus to Kansai Airport. The flight was only 2 hours, which went by pretty fast. We flew in an airplane painted to look like a panda.
When we got to Shanghai, we took the Maglev (super fast magnetic train) to a station kind of near our hostel, then took a taxi the rest of the way. Taxis are super cheap in China, we paid $4-5 each for a 20-30 minute taxi ride, which in Japan would be ridiculously expensive. The ride was amazing as well because the whole city was lit up and every single bridge, overpass, and high rise building was covered in colored lights. It was the most impressive city I've ever seen- it absolutely puts Tokyo and Osaka to shame.
The taxi driver dropped us off at our hostel, which we couldn't find for a little while because it wasn't labeled very well. The street the hostel was on was all restaurants, and even a fish market-looking place with really awkward looking seafood.

Some kind of clear lobstery lookin' thing.......

We tried to ask some people which way to go to get to the hostel, and it turned out that every person on that particular street was incredibly rude and didn't like to help people. We finally went into a hotel and the lady wouldn't help me, but a man she was sitting next to looked at the address of the hostel and just pointed to the right so we walked that direction and eventually found it. We managed to find a place to have some dinner, and then unfortunately had no energy to do anything else, so we just went to bed to rest up for the next day.

On Saturday morning, we got up, and took the train to an underground shopping center, where we haggled for some knock-off Coach bags and a Gucci watch.

Me, celebrating the procurement of my counterfeit merchandise.

Then, we headed off to the Expo.

The theme of the 2010 Expo is "Better City, Better Life" and had a heavy focus on the environment and improving society in the future. Every country had their own awesomely designed building and inside every building was an exhibit of the culture and language of the country, as well as what that country does to help the earth and improve life for generations to come. Pretty cheesy overall, but the architecture was amazing. There were really long lines to get into many of the buildings- the most popular pavillions had lines that were over 6 hours long!- but James and I found a couple pavillions with lines that were less than 20 minutes and we went in those. We saw Algeria, Portugal, Luxembourg, and 2 of the environmental pavillions that were really interesting.

A view of some buildings in the Expo.

Across the street from the Chinese Pavillion, the largest and most popular pavillion in the Expo. That thing was HUGE!

Sweden Pavillion

The Dutch Pavillion: Happy Street, an "ideal city that has developed along a trade route; an area where all aspects of life flourish together."

Inside one of the environmental pavillions- a huge convex screen with the image of a rotating earth projected on it.

Shanghai skyline in the Expo reflecting pool

Big light display with changing colors and patterns over the reflecting pool.

We left the Expo that night, completely exhausted and with swollen feet from all the walking. The next day we got up to do some more sightseeing. We took a cab to Yuyuan Gardens, and spent a bit of time trying to find the actual entrance to the gardens. The cab had dropped us off in the middle of a bazaar-type area, with lots of shops, so everything was a bit crowded. We eventually found the entrance, and we found something else exciting that we hadn't seen in awhile.......

\(^o^)/

They didn't have Snickers or any of the good flavors, but James was able to get an Oreo cheesecake blizzard, and I got something with brownies and chocolate and deliciousness. I discovered during my trip that China likes to completely ruin Western food chains (they did some absolutely horrible things to Papa Johns that I will never forgive them for), but they did okay with Dairy Queen.

So we finally found the gardens, which was basically a big maze of crazy rock formations and old buildings around a huge koi pond.

It was very relaxing to walk around, though. The city had been stressing me out with all the rudeness and busyness and pushing around and being stared at, so it was nice to be in a relaxing place for a couple hours.
After we left the gardens, we headed east across the river to see the famous Pearl Tower. We decided to go up and see the view of the city from 300-something meters up. Unfortunately, we didn't find out until too late that there is apparently only one regular sized elevator that goes to the top, and we had to wait almost an hour to get to the top, all the while getting pushed around by impatient grandmas wearing Christmas sweaters and being stared at by spoiled teenagers acting like 3-year-olds (climing on guard rails, etc.). So fun. But the view at the top was amazing. We got to the top after dark, so we saw the whole city lit up.

Nearby buildings from the top of the Pearl Tower.

Across the river to the Bund, the famous foreign shopping/old financial district of Shanghai.

We had reservations for an acrobat show, so we waited in line again to catch the one elevator to the bottom, then caught a cab to the theater.

James took this photo of the tower in the cab on the way to the theater.

Because of the long lines in the tower, we ended up being a bit late to the show, but we were still able to see most of it. Afterwards, we had dinner at a foreigner friendly restaurant (they had nachos with pico de gallo and REAL SOUR CREAM!!!! (@.@) ), and walked on the Bund to see the skyline at night.

The next day we went back to the Bund for some more shopping before we had to head to the airport. James bought some shoes and some Wii games. I wanted some shoes, but wasn't able to find any that I wanted/ ones that fit.

Then we headed back to the airport, where I bought out the airport gift shop's supply of Skittles (I haven't seen those things in a YEAR!!), and then back to Kobe, where people actually know how to stand in lines like civilized people.

View of the Shanghai skyline from the Bund.

Host Family!

Last Thursday, I finally was able to visit with my host family, for the first time since 2006! I met them at Kuzuha Station (where I used to live) and then we went out to dinner for Yaki-shabushabu (meat and vegetables that you fry in an iron pan).
Afterwards, they invited me back to their house to play MarioKart and visit some more. Everything was exactly the way it was before and I remembered everything. It felt strange to be back, but it made me really happy to see everybody again.

My host brother, Reize, with one of the toys I bought him.

My host mom and brother in the train station.

富士山！！！

Battling the wind somewhere around Station 7 on Mt. Fuji.

This week, I climbed Mt. Fuji. It was amazing, to say the least.
On Saturday night, James and I went to a birthday party in Osaka. We slept for a few hours in a net-cafe, before meeting up with our friends at Shin-Osaka station to catch the 9:30 shinkansen (bullet train). We went to Mishima Station, then took a horrendously long bus ride to Fujiyoshida Station, and walked to the hostel where we would stay the night. Since we got there in the early afternoon, we had a few hours before dinner to walk around the lake. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty overcast and rainy, so we couldn't actually see Fuji, but we saw the cloud that it was behind. It was a big cloud.

Delicious "houtou" lunch! Thick noodles with cabbage, mushrooms, pumpkin, onion, and tofu.

That night, we had dinner and then went for a pre-Fuji-climbing onsen, and went to bed early so we'd be well rested for the next day.
The next morning, those of us who were climbing from the bottom of the mountain headed out around 7. There were two people in our group who were going the most common route and taking a bus to Station 5 to start climbing from there. The rest of us started from Fujiyoshida Station. We walked awhile before we even came to the woods, and then walked for another hour or so before the trail started to go up. But when it went up, it went up. and up. and up. and up. and up. It took about 3 hours of going up to get to Station 5. Along the way, we were passed by runners training for the Fuji Marathon, which is a race up Mt. Fuji. I believe you have to be completely insane in order to even think about doing that.
At Station 5, we stopped for lunch and to rest and change into some warmer clothes. Just before we got there, the wind suddenly picked up, and it seemed to get stronger while we were inside. By the time we left, the wind was so strong, it was difficult to walk in it, and I felt like I was going to get blown away. After Station 5, the plant life began to quickly disappear. Around Station 6 and 7, the climb was a winding path up the face of the mountain in slippery gravel. Because of the slippery gravel, the strong wind, the increasing altitude, and sore muscles, we were only able to take small steps, so going a few hundred meters usually took an hour or more. We also had to stop a lot because the wind would blow dirt in our faces and catch us off balance. It was just a generally horrible section of the trail, and it seemed like it went on FOREVER. Between 7 and 8 was nothing but lava rock. It was easy to climb, but everytime I would try to move, the wind would always catch me off balance, so in order to make any progress, I had to climb on my hands and knees. It was actually a really amazing experience, making our way through the maze of rock, holding on for dear life with the wind and rain. I hated it, but at the same time, it was the part of the climb that made the whole thing worth it. Around that time also, there were some breaks in the clouds, and we were able to get some amazing views of everything below. We were so high in the sky, and we could see way off in the distance where we had started, and it was unbelievable that we had come so far.
About 3 hours after leaving Station 5, we arrived at Station 8, the place where we would spend the night. (And by spend the night, I mean sleep there from 7 in the evening to around 4am. And by sleep, I mean just lay there and TRY to sleep. Even though we were all exhausted from the climb, the combination of going to bed at 7pm and being at such a high altitude (3100 meters or about 10,170 feet) made a good night's sleep next to impossible.)

The clouds at sunset from Station 8.

Originally, we were going to get up around 1am and finish climbing to the summit to see the sunrise, but the wind was so bad that we decided to stay and wait til daylight. It turned out that more clouds had come in since we got there, and we never actually got to see the sunrise, which was really disappointing. We still climbed to the top (another 3 hours) around 5am, and we hung out there and had some breakfast before heading back down. We wanted to go to the crater, but it was so wet and cold and we all just wanted to get back.

Hanging out at Station 10. Joe and Goran dressed up like Mario and Luigi was getting a lot of attention :)

The way down the mountain took about 3 hours. We only went back to Station 5 and then took a bus the rest of the way. Going down was pretty crazy, because the decending trail is all dirt and gravel, and you basically slide down. It's like skiing in your shoes. We were absolutely filthy by the time we got to the bus.
The whole way down was really surreal, because we were in a thick fog, and all you could see was people covered head to toe in raingear, volcanic rock, and black gravel. It was like being on another planet.
After we got to the station, we took a couple unnecessarily long and complicated bus rides, and eventually, and unintentionally, ended up back where we started. We went back to the same onsen we had gone to the day before, and had much needed showers and soaks in outdoor baths. Afterwards, we had some dinner before heading off to the Shinkansen, and then back home.
That night, I had Spaghettios and went straight to bed. I was supposed to work the next morning, but I was so exhausted that I didn't hear my alarm, and when I finally did, there was no way I was getting out of bed. I didn't have to teach so I just decided to take an extra vacation day. It was well deserved I think.