Reason #002 to Learn Japanese: Governmental Broadcasting Corporations

Well, for the first time since I’ve lived here, something has got my blood boiling. This tale begins with our hero, me, returning home after a long day of work. Like on most days, I arrived home at approximately 9:30 PM. However, this time, a man stopped in the stairwell. He seemed confused or lost so I attempted to help him (yes, even I realize how backwards that statement is). After some poor communication on both our parts, he wanted to know if I lived in the building. Like a fool, I said yes. At this point, he reveals that he is an NHK employee.

For those unfamiliar, NHK is a governmental broadcasting television network. It’s funded by people living in Japan who they are able to catch. It’s a television network which if you own a TV, you have to pay for it regardless of everything - if, one of their agents talk to you. Are you following still?

So like, I have a TV because everyone in my building has the same TV. Ask me how many seconds of Japanese TV I’ve watched in my apartment? Answer, zero. However, by OWNING a TV I am forced to pay this service charge. Dafuq? I know what you’re thinking and no, this isn’t a scam, this is actually how this is run. Why isn’t their a bill or just a tax for this then? Why do you only have to pay if you are caught by an agent? Unknown.

I’m getting ahead of myself. So, in the stairwell, I tell the man I don’t speak Japanese (which is true) and he didn’t speak English so it was a sort of “good day sir” sort of situation. Or so I thought. He takes out his smartphone and starts translating the most broken of broken phrases I’ve ever heard. His opening statements were things along the line of “It’s Japanese law. You have to pay. Could go to court.” Keep in mind I’m changing these phrases to make sense.

I sigh, he demands to go to my apartment. At this point he’s trying to get payment from me, asking for my bank card. That was a huge red flag with a 0% chance of happening. He was totally trying to strong arm, threaten, and pull if this crazy fear tactic that quite honestly was having the reverse effect. I wasn’t afraid, I was super annoyed.

Thus, I pulled out my own smartphone and argued back. I said things such as. “But I don’t watch TV.” He replied with, “It doesn’t matter.” What. I asked him, “What if I remove my TV?” He said, “Then you don’t have to pay but you have to pay this month.”

This went on for a good 30 minutes. I have to imagine this was about as fun for him as it was for me. I felt super uncomfortable paying for something when I didn’t understand the situation or what I was paying for (at the time). I called someone to translate for me, which they did. Even after that phone call we still had some back and forth. All peaceful mind you, but quite annoying.

In the end I lost and paid the damn fee. It was about $20 and ONLY for this month. I refused to pay with card and paid with cash, which he wasn’t happy with (small victories). There was no way I was giving them my card info though. Moral of the story, unhook my TV and answer the door for no one. If I see someone in my building, grab a late dinner.

What a dumb system.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/dont-own-a-tv-nhk-doesnt-care-but-still-wants-your-money

Loco in Yoko

At the beginning of this month I had a three day weekend. This means traveling! For about a month I’ve been telling people that I’d go to Yokohama. I finally went to Yokohama. This port city is just south of Tokyo and is fabled to be the place ramen started in Japan. How could I not come with sort of resume?

After a later start than I wanted, I took a LOCAL train to Yokohama instead of the Shinkansen. I traveled half the way with a friend/coworker so the increased length really wasn’t that bad. She was headed to Tokyo so we rode the train together until she had to change lines.

I had been asking around for a powerful ramen place to try there. Someone had promised to go to a specific place with me sometime in the future so I decided to put off the ramen outing until she is available. I wouldn't want to ruin my first Yokohama ramen experience afterall. This is key.

A note about my trip to Yokohama. I walked. I walked a lot. My phone keeps records of steps I take and on both Sunday and Monday I broke records. The following days I was sore from the ridiculous amounts of walking I did - that much walking. Could I have taken more local trains? Of course. Why didn’t I? Well, I’d never been to Yokohama and walking the streets allows me get a better feel of the place. At least that is what I tell myself.

I stayed in the smallest and worst hostel yet. I wouldn't recommend this place nor would I stay there ever again. It wasn’t in the best part of town - which explains the price. I had an interesting, umm, experience. As I left my “room,” this older gentleman who appeared to be on something spotted me from down the hall and walked up to me, getting very close, and said “konichiwa.” I responded but then he just stared at me. I returned to locking my room, double checking it now, but he just stood there. Eventually he just walked away. F’n weird man.

My first destination was the port. On may way though I passed by Yokohama Stadium - home of the Baystars. No baseball games were being played but I still scoped the place out as much as I could. Someday.

The walk from the stadium to the port wasn’t too bad. There was some really weird/entertaining street “show(?)” going on. I’ll let you watch the video below. I can’t say I understood entirely what was going on but I did watch it for a bit. I went from never expecting to hear “Dancing Queen in Yokohama” to “100% listening to Dancing Queen in Yokohama” in a matter of seconds. Japan is one hell of a place.

Everyone told me to check out this Red Brick place if I visit Yokohama. So, that’s what I did. This whole area had a sort of Boston vibe to it. The architecture was, well perhaps you guessed, red brick. It was filled with all sorts of shops from chotskies to high class bars. It was a neat little place. From there I walked to Cosmo World. I don’t know about you, but when I think of Yokohama I think of that damn big Ferris Wheel. Well, this wheel is near the port. It’s called the Cosmic Clock which is admittedly pretty awesome. It’s huge, lights up, is rideable, and tells you the time in a digital format - a near perfect Ferris Wheel. I walked past the Cup of Noodle Museum but unfortunately it was closed.

My last stop for the night was Chinatown. Yes, Chinatown IN Japan. Why not? What did I do in Chinatown? I ate of course. The food was a bit pricy but it was pretty damn good. I spent far too much time trying to decide on a place to go. In the end, I’d say it paid off.

The next day had a serious rain problem. I didn’t let this get me down nor stop me. I went to the closest convenient store and bought myself a 500 yen umbrella for the day. My destination was Sankeien Garden. For this walk, I relied on Google Maps to get there. The route was, um, interesting? It took me through several neighborhoods, up and down small mountains, and through more side roads than I could count. I just blindly put my faith into Google. I found a Dennys along the way. I HAD to try out a Japanese Dennys. It was not the Dennys I knew. I’m talking small breakfast menu and breakfast only at breakfast time. I had omurice. It was good, just verrrrrry different.

For being such a big garden, this place was damn hard to figure out how to get in. There were two entrances and I just totally failed in finding them at first. At this point the rain cleared and the day was improving. Sankeien Garden was a random, last minute find but man - it ranks as one of my favorite places in Japan thus far. It was beautiful. Being early November, the foliage was beginning to start. That was awesome. I don’t know why this place stuck such a powerful note with me, it just did. Hell, it was beautiful and peaceful. I took 324756295 pictures of it.

At this point I decided I was done with Yokohama but I still wasn’t ready to journey home. What does this mean? A half day dertour to good ole Tokyo. It was only about an hour away by local train. Since I was running on a weird garden high, I continued my trek Meiji Shrine and Yoyogi Park. The foliage gave another powerful assist to making both of these locations awesome. Meiji shrine just bled history and tradition. Yoyogi Park (beside sounding like someone hard talking to a famous picnic basket stealing bear) has a delightful juxtaposition of being a hidden away fantastical garden while being surrounded by the skyscrapers of Shibuya. Pretty awesome.

While contemplating heading back that same coworker that I left with a day ago contacted me about meeting her and her friend (who lives in Tokyo) in Roppongi. It was closeish, drinking sounded awesome, and I’d get to learn how to take the buses from Tokyo to Numazu. Win win. Though I claimed it would take me a half hour to get there, I got super lost. Super lost. To be fair, I had never been to Roppongi before and the bar was on the 5th floor of a skyscraper. I was at the skyscraper within a half hour, figuring out it was on a different floor and then the three different elevators I (had to?) take to get there was another thirty minutes. It sort of reminded me of delivering pizza to the Boca Hotel Beach Resort but with no one speaking English. I accept the fact that few people will understand that reference, but just know I mean it as a sort of time restrictive personal hell.

I found it though! Then drinks were had. I was drinking some foreign beer that I had never heard of nor remember the name of. It tasted decent and came is fun gigantic sizes that impressed/worried the bartenders that served them to me. It was that or Hennigan on tap, now you understand my decision. I got to witness higher class Japanese game spit and equally got to watch higher class Japanese game get rejected. Despite my lack of Japanese language skills, some things are universally clear as day. The drinking was incredibly fun and was completely worth the frustration of being momentarily hopefully lost. Fun times for all! I want to have a big night drinking in Tokyo in the near future.

As promised, I got to take the bus back. The bus is sort of awesome. Don’t get me wrong, trains for days. BUT, taking the local train to Tokyo involves transfers and doesn’t guarantee a seat. The bus has no transfers, takes about the same amount of time, cost cheaper (on weekdays), and guarantees a seat. The downside to the bus is traffic, which luckily, was find when I took it. Once back in Numazu we said our farewells, and thus ended the long weekend voyage to Yokohama... and Tokyo.

My next goal is to figure out how to get this giant moth out of my room.

I Stopped Believing

I just sang Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" in a karaoke room with 10 non-sober people and not one person joined in. Everything I know is wrong. Where am I? I question everything.

Everyone's Kyoto

Sure people have heard of Japan’s infamous week off called Golden Week, but have you heard of Silver Week? Bronze Week not yet confirmed. Silver Week however, is a very very real and very very awesome thing that happens in September. In 2015, it happened from September 20th-23rd. If you're a mathematician like myself, you’ll notice right away that four days isn’t quite the length we’d attach the title ‘week’ too. To that, all I have to say is that, it was two extra days I didn’t have to work so does it really matter? The answer is a clear no. Where a four days exist, so does a mini vacation. When I knew I was coming to Japan I wanted to do two things - climb Mt Fuji and go to Kyoto. Check and check. (Yes, yes, Fuji post is still coming)

Kyoto! Known for it’s tradition, culture, and overall awesomeness. I needed to see this amazing hotspot of, er, Japaneseness(?). This mini vacation sounded like such a great idea to me, the timing was perfect! It turned out that half of Japan agreed with this sentiment because Kyoto was damn well packed. Not just a flood of Japanese tourists but also foreigners from ever neck of the woods imaginable. I was no better. Sunday and Monday were crazy town but Tuesday and Wednesday calmed down much more. Kyoto station was out of its mind.

The plan was to meet up with those lovely folk I trained with back in early May. Since they are all in the Nagoya region I’d take the Shinkansen over to Nagoya, we’d all board the same train, and bullet ourselves over to Kyoto land. I was quite surprised when this plan worked out perfectly. I love it when a plan comes together. I found this ridiculously awesome house to rent via AirBnB for stupid cheap for five guests. EVERY hotel in Kyoto was booked and super expensive. This was a HOUSE, with two floors, two bedrooms, a full bathroom, a kitchen, and lobby only one 5-minute train stop from Kyoto.

I of course was suspicious of ye ole ‘too good to be true’ situation, but, I have to say, it was actually just perfect. For the five of us, for three nights, it was $100 per person. Unheard of. This was my first time using AirBnB but I can guarantee I’ll keep it in mind for the future. The person we rented the place from even met us at the train station, have the cab driver directions, and showed us the place. He spoke good English, was friendly, gave us a map in English, and offered suggestions and recommendations to us. What a guy.

Stop one on this great adventure was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Kyoto, Fushimi Inari-taisha. If you’ve ever seen pictures of the Japanese shrine with what seems like infinite reddish torii gates, that is this place (as seen above). Beautiful, truly f’n beautiful. It completely lived up to the hype. It was a slight hike up a mountain, but well worth it. From the top, you could see all of Kyoto and even a the tops of some of Osaka’s highest skyscrapers in the distance. Breathtaking is cliche but the truth. Never have I seen so many torii gates or fox statues in my life - 10/10, highly recommend, would go again. The rest of the night was spent walking around Kyoto proper and eating at a delicious izakaya.

The next day we were off to the west side to the aen power spot known as Arashiyama. This is where the fabled Bamboo Forest exists, dozens of zen gardens, and over all peaceful gardens. The illusion was a bit shattered by the moving walls of people, but my imagination is strong. Our next stop was Kinkaku-ji aka the ‘Golden Temple.’ I have mixed feelings about this place. Was it cool, yes. Hell, it was a golden temple. However, that really was all that was there. It’s a bit small and you can’t enter it. Was I satisfied, yes. Did I expect more, yes. That’s all.

We then met up with someone I met back in the states at my recruitment for my current job. She ended up taking a different teaching job but still came to Japan. We met several of her coworkers, drank beer from yard long science beakers, got hammered, then returned to our house for more beers. She stayed with us and joined us on Tuesday’s adventures.

While sure, I’ve used the phrase “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” before, but this was different. Our main goal with this day was to get full on kimoned up. The girls booked a reservation to get dressed up by professionals. From start to finish, it took about two hours before we were on the road all decked out. For women, there are looooots of choices on what to wear for each part of the outfit, as you may expect, it took some time. While for a man it is far simpler, it still took a bit and a level of knowledge that is beyond anything I’ll ever understand. How I wore that, how she put it on me, how it stayed on… unknown.

There we walked over to Kiyomizu-dera (awesome) in this Japanese traditional garb. Now, here’s the thing. We were basically looked upon like we were all members of a circus. As a foreigner in Japan you stick out. As a foreigner in Japan dressed in kimono you REALLY stick out. Everyone looked at us. Granted, we looked damn good, but was there more? I didn’t know if it was frowned upon or seen as us embracing the culture? I’m sure it’s different case by case but it was something alright. While we certainly weren't the first foreigners to ever wear kimono, some people certainly treated us that way.

Then came the photos. Soooooo many groups of similarly dressed Japanese people all wanted to take pictures with our group. We’d be walking and from behind us “kawaii” in a high pitched woman’s voice. So many pictures. No lie, at one point we had to tell this one group to wait to take pictures with them so we could take pictures with another group. Sure we may have been a circus act, but we also had our fans. It was a surreal experience. Kiyomizu-dera is also beautiful, my second favorite place we visited in Kyoto, and was the perfect place to take tons of pictures.

Then things started to go, well, not so good. Remember when I said I had no idea how to put the kimono on? Well, when it started to come undone that became a major problem. My fellow travel buddies tried to um, fix it, but honestly made it waaaay worse. We did this shamefully in a local shrine while a group of Korean women also in kimonos literally pointed and laughed at us. It wasn’t embarrassing at all! So I had to like hold it on. We left our clothes back at the shop. While I tried to tough it out, I finally broke and said I had to go back. I told the others I was very cool with getting changed and meeting them after but they sucked it up and went back with me and we all changed out. Good folk. After all that embarrassment we went to a delicious okonomiyaki restaurant and stuffed our faces. My friend left us that night, back to Osaka.

After ‘checking out,’ we gave Kyoto one final spin before returning to our respected towns. We stuffed our luggage in a train locker and went to the Kyoto International Manga Museum. This place was interesting; not in the way I hoped but in a different way completely. It was an old manga school now turned into an archive. People go there, pay 800 yen, and just spend the day reading manga. You can take any book from any shelf and read. There are outside areas, children areas, indoor - it’s amazing. So many people just reading manga. The museum part was underwhelming in size but interesting in material.

After the museum it was a short walk to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. A beautiful area but we couldn't get inside the palace walls. It was in a nice park though. Not getting in was a bit of a let down but still worth a look see. We grabbed some local ramen, grabbed our luggage bought out Shinkansen tickets, said our goodbyes, and returned to our respected towns. Kyoto trip - successful!

Reason #001 to Learn Japanese: Emergency Warnings

Imagine this scenario if you will. After a brutally hot summer, the last few nights have finally cooled down. So, you sleep with your windows open. The key word here is 'sleep.'

However

At 3 am you are awoken by what can easily fall into the category of top five most unholy sounds you've ever heard. Luckily, I've never heard an air raid siren in practical use before, but, an air raid siren is the closest match I can think of still. It was, well, loud. Needless to say, I woke up.

Being my first city-wide siren alarm clock, I woke up confused and honestly a bit panicked. What do I do? The siren only went off for only a few minutes. Then, silence.

Until, a voice started to echo through the streets. The voice was loud, firm, and had an air of no nonsense to it. Unfortunately, I still don't understand Japanese. I can only assume this voice was explaining the noise, explaining the situation, and maybe even giving instructions on what to do. Helpful to the right ears, waisted on me. This went on for minutes.

So it's about 3:15 am, there was a siren, there was a city-wide announcement, and I still have no idea what is happening or what I should do. No longer in that rocked out of bed sort of mindset, I'm thinking more logically but still a bit shaken. My phones got emergency messages in Japanese - sigh.

I look to the streets to gauge the level of panic. None. None at all. Is everything okay? I look up what an emergency alarm could mean. Heavy rain, volcano eruption, or tsunami. One isn't like the others. There has been heavy rain and thunder, or what I hoped was thunder and not eruptions.

So I did what I had to do. I went back to sleep - eventually. Oh, it was a tsunami warning by the way. It was backlash from the earthquake in Chili. It only ended up being 60 inches, but better safe than sorry.

For the first time in my life, I honestly didn’t know if the sound of thunder was actually the sound of a volcano eruption. That’s some shit.

I need to learn Japanese.

Overjoyed for Obon

Thus, my glorious Obon vacation comes to an end. In Japan, there are three confusingly, possibly wonderful, one week long holidays that occur during the year. Obon is the one that happens in summer. ALL of Japan gets off. This is both awful and horrible. My take on the actual holiday is that it is a time when your dead ancestors come down to Earth to chill. You stick toothpicks in a cucumber which represents a horse and more picks into an eggplant which represents a cow. Your ancestors take the horse down and then the cow back - the cow is slower so the spirits can take their sweet time back to paradise. So yea, a week off work.

Still new to Japan, I did what any man would do, everything. I filled out my week quite masterly to the point where I have to stretch 20,000 Yen (~$200) out for a week and a half. Oooops. If times get hard, I still have US banks. There are no worries here, I don’t regret any decisions made during Obon.

During my Saturday night’s izakaya drinking celebration, I got invited to my very first Japanese BBQ. This took place the very next day along a river. There are several similarities and differences between American and Japanese BBQs. First off, no burgers or dogs. I know right? The grills here are round and more like tables than those rectangular hot boxes we think off in the states. A combination of delicious chicken, meat, vegetables, and even fish are thrown onto these grills. Everyone who goes splits the bill the host paid for the supplies and everyone bring their own beer. Quite honestly, a perfect afternoon. The BBQ was followed by evening drinking at an izakaya and then night drinking at a bar. Beers were had. Ever feel hungover before you go to sleep? Yea, that.

The next morning… Tokyo! Yuuuup, Tokyo take two! Once again I met the same friend/co-worker who took an entire day to show me around once again. Since she had never had chocolate chip pancakes before, we remedied that first thing with an overwhelming stack right off the bat. While they were absolutely delicious, my rapidly shrinking stomach couldn't finish them. I felt both horribly ashamed and proud of my weight loss progress. In Tokyo you can truly find anything.

Which is a perfect transition into my next reason for coming to Tokyo - to find s@#$ I can’t find elsewhere. My goal was to find hiking boots. Where I’m living, I couldn't find anything bigger than 28 cm. I wear 30.5 cm. My gracious guide used her connections of professional hunters (not even joking) to recommend places we could try to go. While the selection was still slim, boots were acquired. I did pay WAY more than I wanted but as the old saying says, beggars can’t be choosers. I was just happy to finally have boots for all the future hiking to come (this is foreshadowing).

We met another for a little something Japan likes to call a maid cafe. For those who know know, for those who don’t, buckle up. It’s basically a cafe where high teen to early 20’s Japanese women dress in maid outfits, act all custey, and call you master for the entirety of your stay. That’s only the beginning. They “cast spells” on your food and drinks, draw art in coffee foam, and charge you to take pictures with them. Now, this leads me to a certain observation I made during my time at this establishment. A business man, probably in his mid 40s, full suit, briefcase - paid a maid to play Connect Four with him. This is something I witnessed.

Next stop, Mexican! Before you judge me, Mexican (not to mention GOOD Mexican) has been previously impossible for me to find in Japan. Leave it to Tokyo though, no problem whatsoever. Now just the two of us again, we ate and we drank. To say tequila shots were had and margaritas were drank would be a gross understatement. It was glorious. Imagine craving a food/drink you thought was temporarily removed from your life suddenly could be had? You are going to cradle that and keep it close. This is what happened. It was like being able to eat a Dodo egg again. The food was great, drinks were perfect, and the company was spot on. While speaking English, eating/drinking Mexican, and being served by American bartenders - it was a surreal moment where I had to actually remember I was in Japan - Tokyo of all places. A gerat f@#$ing night.

If you recall, my last trip to Tokyo was cut short by a need to catch the last bullet train home. I cut out that pain this time and got myself a 3000 Yen, step above a hostile, “hotel.” My room was bed and some outlets. This, not a complaint. What else did I really need? Sure it was a shared bathroom but whatever. For that price, a steal. My plan for the following day was to just explore Tokyo on my lonesome and see what I could discover. Instead, I chatted up a guy from Colorado and a woman from Holland in the lobby of the “hotel.” I told them I was going to check out the Ueno Park museums and they were all aboard. So yea, I was in Japan looking at a Cleopatra and Egyptian exhibit. After some coffee, watching a street magician, going to museums, eating lunch, and visiting the Imperial Palace, we all split up and went our separate ways. My way was home.

The NEXT day (Wednesday), I woke up early to take an hour train ride to Shizuoka City. There I met my Australian friend from initial training. We had hiking on the mind. Now, with 100% new boots. We took one train stop and about a 40 minute walk to arrive in Mariko. Here we did, well, pottery. Mariko has all sorts of arts and crafts you can pay to do and have professionals show you how to do it. I have to admit, pottery was pretty fun. It will take two long months until I get my “beautiful” “cup,” but I’m excited for the day! The people who helped up were very kind to deal with our poor Japanese skills and even worse pottery abilities.

It was a short walk to the mountain range from there. The mountain range was your stereotypical rolling green mountains you see in movies. Instead of taking the simple paths, we sort of went our own way in attempt to discover whatever lays hidden in the trees. We found rusted belts and machinery for sending carts up the mountain to collect oranges. Other than some long forgotten farming tools and sheds, I wouldn’t say we “discovered” all that much. The hike was good but it was bloody-damn hot. The summers here are no joke. Everything they warn you about is true - it’s brutal. Once our water ran out, we returned down from our adventure, grabbed a local bus, and went our separate ways.

The following day I rested and slept in for the first time all break. Why? Well, the next day would be one of my greatest adventures to date - a little place called Mt Fuji. While this climb did occur on Obon, it deserves it’s own post and should not be jammed in with the rest of the week. So next time, Fuji-san.

Hydrangea Season is Serious Business

On June 27th I had my welcome party. Your first thought it probably why was your welcome a party a solid month after starting? Well, the school likes to plan events and spread them out. Since the previous party was the going away party for the leaving teacher, this was just how it was spread out. In all honesty, it didn’t matter when it was. It was however, pretty great. Much beer was drank, I got to socialize with many students I’ve never spoken to before, had to give some impromptu speeches, and overall was pretty swell. The second party involved more drinking and the students agreed to pay for me so I didn’t spent a yen all night.

Despite an, ehem, last start the following day, I decided to take a solo day trip to the highly recommended Kamakura. It was off an on raining but clear enough to brave. It’s the rainy season right now and if I let rain stop me from exploring I’d have to wait about another month and that’s not happening. By local train it took about an hour and a half with only a few transfers. This was quite the achievement for me since it was the first time traveling by train completely on my own without any precise explanations from others. Both Google Maps and an app called HYPERDIA make train travel elementary. I didn’t screw up at all either there or back and that’s a huge win for me. On the way back I found a route that only required one transfer and that was down right awesome.

So Kamakura is temple and shrine happy. They are everywhere. I went there having no idea where I’d be going or what I’d be doing. I looked up some of the larger sites on my phone on the train ride and asked some friends recommendations - then I just sort of hoofed it. My first target was the giant Buddhist Temple known as Hase-dera. This is where a giant Golden Buddha exists. This thing was beyond awe inspiring. I respected the signs and didn’t take a photo but I really wanted to. I just stared at it for a few minutes. Truly remarkable. This location also had a cave that I had to duck to travel through. It was filled with tiny Buddha statues and dim light, you know, something that seems like it would only exist in like an Indiana Jones flick.

I happened to visit Kamakura and especially Hase-dera during hydrangea blooming season. I was quick to learn that this is quite the big deal. While I imagine the place is normally covered with tourists, it was especially busy this day. Loooots and lots of people. There was even a Hydrangea Viewing Path that had a roped off waiting line. The moral of the story is that hydrandeas are serious business and shouldn’t be taken lightly by any means. I mean, sure, they are pretty and all, but hot damn the people.

Even getting my fill of Buddha, I needed some Shinto action. On Google Maps I saw what appeared to be a huge shrine near the station. That would be my next destination. First though, food. I walked for a bit waiting for something to speak to me - then is spoke. Of all things, a burrito restaurant. Before you roll your eyes you have no idea how few Mexican style restaurants I have seen since I’ve been living in Japan. The second I walked through the door a Japanese woman in perfect English greeted me. I chose correctly. The burrito was like a burrito / wrap hybrid but very delicious. I chatted with her a bit and then head back off.

Google Maps was correct, this shrine was massive. Tsurugaoka Hachimangu is Kamakura’s most important shrine. There are archways on the street that lead to it. Apparently during cherry blossom season the place is absolutely beautiful - not that I was complaining when I went. I visited some of the side shrines before going to the main area. Here I noticed a bunch of money just laying on the ground. I looked around and saw a man and an elderly woman looking over the ponds. I slow English and my limited mixed Japanese I asked if it was theres. The woman checked for sometime and realized it was hers. They were both super thankful and it felt really good. Since it occurred right in front of a shrine, I donated to it and prayed for a spell.

The two main building were quite impressive. This place had full time shrine maidens working - the real deal. Just exploring all the areas I was permitted to go was pretty amazing. I kept finding side shrines in strange locations which was awesome to me. The main building was on top of a hill that you have to climb a tall flight of stairs to reach. From there you can see much of Kamakura and especially all the street arches which lead to it. I can’t even imagine how busy this place must be come New Year.

At this point it was getting late but I was still an hour and a half from home so I marched on. Unfortunately the larger shrines close down around 4:00 pm thus my window had long ended. It was sprinkling and I was definitely getting exercise at least. I passed by a place claiming it had award winning glazed pork bellies over rice so I had to try of course. I’ll admit, it was pretty damn good. It came with a side of udon - really good stuff. With that though, it was time to call it a day. I was pretty damn exhausted. The night before slowed me down a bit, I got to a late start, it rained, but I regret nothing. I’ll return to Kamakura - the place is beautiful. I’d love to see it with the cherry blossoms instead of the hydrangeas.