Lions and Tigers and... Maids?

So today, I’m on my third day of my internship and it’s going fantastic, but I’ll go into more detail about what i’ve been doing in my internship at a later date. 

I got great news from my mom this morning that she wants to come play with me in Tokyo after I finish my internship and before I go to Seoul! I seriously can’t wait to see her! I honestly thought it was going to be Christmas until I could see someone familiar from home. 

Anyway, I’ll dive straight into this weirdly titled post. After the sheer exhaustion of the previous day, I found myself having to meet my boss for the first time. He had called Rob to schedule a pre-internship meeting and to take us out to lunch. We, being broke college students in what is probably the most expensive city in the world, took him up on this offer. After stopping by the company and informally introducing ourselves to some of the fellow staff members , we headed out to grab lunch in Shinjuku. On the train we were discussing some of the places that we had yet to cross off our list with our boss and he happily suggested that we try Akihabara. Akihabara is known worldwide for cheap electronics and Japan’s anime and manga culture. Ironically, Akihabara is also the place that the previously mentioned group 64-member girl group AKB48 was founded. 

We grabbed lunch at a small sushi place in Shinjuku and talked for a while with the chefs and our boss. The chefs complimented both Rob and I on our ability to speak Japanese so well. We both denied profusely (a Japanese cultural practice) and said we were still learning. Once lunch was finished, our boss surprised us and took us to some Shinto shrines in Shinjuku and Akihabara. At the first shrine he took us to in Shinjuku, he showed us how to properly pray in the Shinto fashion. I felt a little foolish and ignorant since I (obviously) don’t practice Shintoism, but overall, I’m very glad that he taught us the proper way so that we could be more respectful to future stops. 

In Akihabara, he took us to some more shrines and an old Confucian school. I unfortunately left my camera at home that day, so I don’t have any pictures to share.

While we were shrine hopping, the sky opened up and Rob and I experienced the beginning of our first typhoon. Our boss decided to halt the shrine excursion and take us to an origami museum/paper-making factory. We happened to stumble across a class and decided to participate. The instructor was probably in his late seventies and was a frequent volunteer at the museum. He made origami look effortless. He would explain what he was making while inserting witty jokes and laughing with the observers. He noticed Rob and I were foreign so he folded us some souvenirs.  For me, a star brooch and for Rob, a paper dog. 

We decided the rain was too much after that, so we departed and headed home for the night. 

The next day was filled with the most random events. We first stopped in the “Electric City” in Akihabara, and walked around some department stores and anime/manga stores. The colors of everything in the electric city were so amazing. Being outside was like watching an LED screen. It was scorching hot after the typhoon and Rob pointed out a six story arcade that he wanted get lost in, so we decided that we would take a few minutes and play some Tekken. As much as I love video games, I am absolutely terrible at button punchers. I just sit there and punch the same button a billion times and lose instantly. Rob, on the other hand, was quite good. He got through a lot of the levels in the street fighting game. 

Akihabara's Electric City

Losing at Tekken

When we left the arcade, we decided to stop at a maid cafe that was close to the station. Maid cafes in Japan are huge. To me they are extremely strange, but Rob was in heaven. Basically the concept is that a bunch of twenty-something girls dress in french maid costumes wait hand on foot on their “masters” (or princess as I was so called). Every girls is adorable in a child-like way, has a voice that is probably ten times higher than normal, and sing and dance much to the enjoyment of their “masters”. I will never really understand how some guys could get turned on by that, but I digress..... Rob loved it. He couldn’t stop grinning and squealing. (Totally threw you under the bus there, Rob) The extremely unfortunate part of the experience was that they don’t allow pictures to be taken, so I ended up taking a picture of the food they served us. 

Turtle Matcha Flavored Ice Cream

Rob's Bear Curry

The biggest problem I had with the maid cafe was how expensive it was and not with the concept. To just sit there and not order anything was 1,000 yen. But with drinks, food,  polaroid pictures of the girls, and glowsticks (all part of a package you had to buy with the food) brought us out to around 6000 yen (over $60). Absolutely not worth it if you’re someone like me who’s not into older girls acting like they’re five years old. But it was an experience in Japanese culture nonetheless. 

Rob’s family gave him free-entry tickets to the Ueno Zoo so we headed to Ueno next. The park that the zoo was in was amazing. It reminded me a lot of Central Park, skyscrapers everywhere and locals relaxing in the nice weather. When we first entered the zoo, we checked out the ever-so-famous pandas that everyone hypes up (is there a zoo in the world that doesn’t hype up pandas?). They were lackluster, though, as were the rest of the animals. I’ve never been a huge zoo person, so I let my exhaustion creep up on me as we walked around. Rob, on the other hand, majored in Biology when he was at U of A, so he really enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, I was very appreciative to have received a free ticket to the zoo, but I always feel bad for the animals in the cages. 

Rob and I

Cute sign saying "Don't feed the animals"

Ueno Zoo!

Engrish is the funniest here in Japan. What exactly a "Jackass" Penguin is, I don't know.

There were two big parts of the zoo that I did enjoy though. The first was a huge pagoda that they had towards the front of the zoo. It was beautiful. The other was the giant lily pond in the center of the zoo. It held a lot of the zoo’s cranes and swans. With the skyscrapers surrounding it, it was a beautiful sight. After a quick pit-stop and an Asahi later, we decided that we had enough for the day and headed home.

Pit Stop. The lady passed out in the back is how I felt that day.

The Lily Pond and Tokyo.

Pagoda in the zoo!

On my way home, I stopped by the local shrine in my neighborhood and took a few pictures. It was so peaceful that I’m thinking about making it a frequent stop on my way home from work.

Sanctuary

Have a good rest of the week! :)

Pleasant Surprises!

Hello all!

So after my exhausting first day in Harajuku and Shibuya, I was able to meet up with Rob (remember, we’re going back in time before I actually started work). 

We decided that we’d spend a day being typical American tourists. After meeting at Hamamatsucho station in Central Tokyo, we made our way to Tokyo Tower. We really didn’t know which way to go, so we followed the white and red tip of the tower as it poked up from beyond the skyscrapers. The first turn we made was on the Tokyo World Trade Center (or something with an extremely similar name). We thought nothing of it until we noticed signs that advertised the observation deck at the top of the 60+ story building (I think that’s how big it was...). The tickets were fairly cheap for a tourist attraction (600 yen) so we thought we’d make a pit stop and enjoy the view. 

The 360* panoramic deck had breathtaking views. We were both able to point out random places that we had only read about in history books. Rob pointed out Zojouji Temple as a spot he wanted to visit. I very much obliged as its impression from both the books I’ve read and the sky was magnificent. After pointing out some random spots we wanted to go to and spending time catching up, we headed to the temple. 

Tokyo Bay!

Tokyo Tower and Zojouji from the sky!

On top of the world!!

Zojouji is a stop that you absolutely must go to if you ever go to Tokyo. It’s central to the corporate business and government sector of Tokyo and stands at the very base of Tokyo Tower.Tokyo Tower looked impressive from the base, but there is hands down no comparison to the beauty of Zojouji to Tokyo Tower. The past trumped the present in the case of comparing the two. I was blown away by both the size of the temple and the details in the architecture its decorative accents. 

The inside of the Temple was just as beautiful as the outside. I didn’t want to be rude to the people who were actually there to pray, so I didn’t take any pictures, but the center focus was a giant Buddha. It was a little smoky from people burning incense, but it was still an experience nonetheless. I had been to one other Buddhist temple in Singapore, so the whole process was still a little new to me. 

Zojouji and Tokyo Tower

Old Rafters of a Side Entrance Gate

A side Temple in the Complex

Side Buildings in the Complex

The Main Temple

After sitting for a few minutes in silence and admiring the Buddha we decided to walk around the huge grounds. We found cute little stone dolls that we assumed to be children with yarn hats and offerings in front of them. We couldn’t really figure out what they represented, but there were TONS of them. Rows upon rows that spread the length of the entire temple grounds. 

Once we saw everything at the temple, we wanted to try Tokyo Tower. However, on the walk over we decided that since the basic ticket to the top of the tower was slightly more expensive than we had planned, we decided to save it for a day when Tokyo wasn’t cloudy. Our main goal being that we could see Mount Fuji at a later date. 

So then I suggested that we try the Imperial Palace. Walking without any sense of direction as to where the palace was became slightly tiring so we stopped to grab some lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The quick pit stop gave us a bit more energy, but we found that we were still both exhausted from jet lag as soon as we left the restaurant. 

As we continued walking, I noticed a small patch of hydrangeas on the side of the road. My dad’s mother, Nona, used to grow them so it brought back really great memories of her home when I was little. Needless to say, I felt nostalgic and homesick. 

<3 <3 <3

Wandering led us to what we thought were the Imperial Gardens, but they were just regular gardens. And by regular, I mean one of the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever been in. Japanese maintenance standards have made a regular park into what Americans would consider a national landmark. There was a huge pond in the center of the park with a traditional Japanese tea house on a dock in the middle of it. We figured resting our legs would be good so we paid 500 yen and participated in our own little solo tea ceremony. The waitress handed us instructions and let us choose where we wanted to practice. 

Beautifully Sculpted Tree

Traditional Japanese Bridge

We decided to order the (absolutely non-traditional) cold tea because it was so hot outside and お菓子 (おかし/okashi: traditional Japanese sweets). Rob knew everything down to how you were supposed to position your feet when you sit in the traditional pose called Seiza. I pretended like I knew what I was doing, but I really had no idea. The instructions couldn’t even really help me, the ceremony is quite complicated. 

We forgot to take a picture before we ate the okashi.

Tea House

Stunning view from atop a hill in the park.

After we finished our tea we noticed a group of older Japanese women who had just got their tea and were drinking it in the most beautiful way I had ever seen. It was really cool to be able to see locals participating in such an iconic part of their history. 

As we got up to put our shoes on at the tea house exit, one of the older women came up to me and offered me some bandaids for my blisters that I had accumulated over the past two days. “They look like they are excruciating.” she said and was so surprised when I thanked her and agreed in Japanese. Rob patiently waited holding all of my stuff while I sat there and gingerly put on the new bandaids. 

We decided that we were through with trying to find the Imperial Palace and decided to try and find our friend Minako in Shinjuku instead. Some background on Minako, she came to Arizona with some other students from Tokyo International University in the spring and we all quickly became friends. Her mother is Chinese and her father is Japanese, so she is bilingual and extremely pretty. 

When we finally found her at Shinjuku station she suggested that we see a little bit of Shinjuku before we went to an Izakaya. Fun fact: Shinjuku is known for its weird nightlife. “Love” hotels, nightclubs, “fun” saunas, etc. We stopped at an arcade and took some purikura photos. For those that don’t know, purikura are the Japanese photobooths that blow peoples eyes up to giant size and make everyone look doll-like, pastel-y, and, overall, a little creepy. 

When we got to the izakaya we were ravenous. We ordered a round of extremely girly cocktails (Rob’s being the girliest: Lychee and with mandarin orange vodka). After stuffing our faces, we decided to head home. Poor Minako had class all day and then had to trek around with lame foreigners. (有り難うみなこ！＾＿＾）

Bar snacks: East meets West

Minako!

In Shinjuku

When I finally got home I could barely move, my feet were throbbing and my shoulders hurt from carrying my heavy bag around. I immediately passed out. Overall though, it was a day full of unplanned, yet exciting surprises. :)

I’m really working on trying to catch up to where I am today. I’m hoping that this will become a daily journal type of thing. I know my family at least is interested in my daily life here. 

Harajuku Lovers

Just like the Gwen Stefani song, when I went to Harajuku, that s**t was bananas.
(Cheesy, but let me feel clever for a second please)

After flying all day the day before, the 12+ hour sleep that I had after a full meal of Chirashi that my host mother prepared was the best sleep I feel like I have ever had. Before I get to everything that happened my first full day in Japan, I'll introduce my host family a bit.


I live with a family of four in a beautiful three-story building near Shinagawa. My host father works for a Japanese trading company and my host mother is a stay at home mom. Before they had a family, they lived in Taiwan for about eight years. My host father is fluent in Chinese, so it's been nice practicing both Japanese and Chinese with him. Nao is the oldest daughter. At thirteen, she can already speak, read and understand English very well (she's currently watching the Scarlet Pimpernel next to me for her advanced English class). She attends a private school here in Tokyo and is out the door at 6 am every morning and doesn't get in until 6:30~7 every night. Rio is the 赤ちゃん（akachan: baby) of the family. She is five years old and is learning how to read the first two Japanese alphabets (Hiragana and Katakana). She is extremely  元気 (genki: lively, energetic) and 可愛い(kawaii: cute). As a family, they have done everything to make me feel welcome and at home. They have made my transition to living in Japan so much easier.

Mr. Osako and Rio

Rio, Nao and Mrs. Osako

So, once I established my home base, I was able to go explore! Let me tell you, the pictures and everything the American media tells you about Harajuku does NOTHING to do it justice. It is AMAZING. Fashion everywhere, huge sky scrapers, kawaii trinkets. My head almost exploded from the craziness of it all. No matter what direction you looked you could see people that blew the top off of what you would expect stereotypical Harajuku fashion to be. The best way to explain the style would be if you picked out the most outrageous pieces in your closet and made an outfit out of them that actually worked. It was like runway mixed with ready-to-wear flawlessly.

I felt like such a stalker gawking at all of the people that I didn't want to be more rude and take their picture, but rest assured that I was able to get some good ones of the area as a whole! :)

I wanted to save the pop culture part of Harajuku for after I did the historical things. My first stop in Harajuku was Meiji Jingu. Meiji Jingu is a shrine that is dedicated to the late emperor Meiji and his consort. The forest that surrounds the shrine is composed of trees that were flown into Tokyo from over all of Japan and abroad to commemorate the emperor's achievements. The shrine itself is huge with many buildings. It feels like you're lost in a forest on a deserted planet when, in reality, you're in central Tokyo. 

I was fortunate to see a traditional Shinto wedding ceremony while I was at the Shrine. There was a long procession of the bride and groom's families all wearing traditional kimono. It was absolutely stunning. The one thing that I would recommend to people traveling to Japan would be to go to the shrine on a weekday. Not that it was particularly crowded on a Sunday afternoon, but if it was completely deserted I feel that I would have experienced what the atmosphere was meant to feel like when it was built.

Main Entrance. Right outside Harajuku Station

Lantern in the Forest

Sake Drums

Close-Up of Sake Drum

A random Tori-i on the path through the forest to the Shrine.

"Cleansing Station" People wash their hands and mouths here before entering the Shrine.

Shrine Rafters

Wedding Procession

Bride, Groom, and (I'm assuming) the Bride's Mother. (out of focus, I'm sorry my camera picked up the guy in the pink)

The main gates to the Shrine

Side Entrance

Loner and the Shrine... My dad says no one is really interested in seeing pictures without people they know in them. This one's for you, daddy! :)

A Shrine employee on one of the sides. I followed her to a deserted part of the Shrine.

Another picture for daddy. The Shrine entrance is in the background! :)

So after tending to some newly-formed blisters after walking through Meiji Jingu, I made the long trek from past to present (and by long I mean across the train tracks). 

The first thing that crossed my path happened to be storm troopers. Not traditionally Japanese, but if any place was to have random storm troopers gathering at a crosswalk, it would certainly be Japan.

Only in Japan....

I spent the next few hours getting lost in the web of streets that compose Harajuku. I decided that I wanted to be surprised by Takeshita Dori (more on that later) at the very end. I walked the main street  with all of the big stores (Zara, Michael Kors, Uniqlo, etc) and was unimpressed. The side streets are where the life of Harajuku is! 

I weaved my way through side streets and found both cute and outrageous boutiques. As I window shopped, I was able to practice my Japanese with some of the store clerks standing outside flagging people down. I was in heaven. Without getting too cheesy, I felt as though everything I've put myself through these past four years was for this moment. For the first time, I've felt like I was living out my dream. 

One of the intersections. Taken from the top of Tokyu Plaza Mall.

Harajuku Station!

While I was trying to lose my way through the alleys and shops, I was caught off guard by a guy with a camera speaking extremely broken English. He asked me if he could take a few pictures of me for his fashion blog. I applauded his effort but reassured him that he could speak to me in Japanese. We both felt a lot more comfortable in breaking the language barrier. He asked me various questions while he was shooting like why I was in Japan, where I learned Japanese, what my favorite place in Harajuku was etc. I laughed so hard when he first asked me to take pictures for his fashion blog because Rio helped me pick out my outfit that day. She has great taste, I suppose. :)

 If anyone in interested (and didn't see my Facebook post already), here is the link to his fashion blog (WARNING: it's entirely in Japanese):   Tatsuya Seki

After I made my through the side streets I decided to tackle Takeshita Dori. Takeshita Dori is famous in Japan for the weekend fashion. People wear the most outrageous things and walk up and down the street (more like an alleyway by American standards) of shops. Gwen Stefani has popularized this road in America through her Harajuku Lovers stuff, but like I mentioned before, that does nothing to do Takeshita Dori justice. It was crazy packed when I went. It was hard to even walk through the street. There were the craziest shops. When you first walked under the main gate of of the street there's an AKB48 shop (for an immensely popular girl group here in Japan consisted of 64 members), next to a lingerie shop, next to a heavy emo-goth shop with screamo metal music pumping from it. It was an overload of craziness that worked despite having nothing in common. I was excited. 

The entrance to Takeshita Dori.

After Harajuku, I had a few hours to kill before I headed home. I decided to try and find the ever-so-small Shibuya Crossing. If you haven't sensed my sarcasm by now, you never will. Shibuya Crossing is notorious for being the busiest intersection in the world. I think it has a total of 12 or so crosswalks. I couldn't count because there were so many people there that you couldn't even really see the road!

Shibuya Crossing Pre-Green Light and no, I am not that much taller than Japanese people, I held my camera over my head....

 Needless to say, trying to navigate through that was exhausting. By the time I finally found my way through the crowd I was starving and my blisters had started to get blisters.

I stopped at a popular udon noodle chain called Hanamaru and ordered seaweed noodles to end my first full day in Japan.

First Udon in Japan! 

Next up, Zojouji and Tokyo Tower (kind of)!! :)

The First Few Days

Hello all. I have safely made it to Japan! I apologize for the lack of posts. Fortunately, I have fully adjusted to time zone and have managed to squeeze in a lot of Tokyo within this past week.

I’ll make separate posts about what I did specifically on each day at a later time when I have a chance to edit some of the pictures that I took. 

This post will just be my musings on starting my internship!

For those of you who don’t know what Co-Op Japan is, let me explain. Co-Op is a big retail store chain that in centrally located in Nakano, Tokyo. It has branch stores at many of the major universities across Japan. Co-op also specializes in home delivery of its products. 

For my internship, I will be working in the different sectors of the business as sort of managerial training in order to understand how a business functions from the corporate level to the consumer level. 

On Thursday, I started work at the main office in Nakano. Rob, the other intern from America, and I met outside the office at 8:45 for our first meeting at 9. We went over the basic principles of the company and made introductions (all in Japanese) to the CEO and COO of the company (that was scary). 

Fortunately, I was able to remember my 敬語 (けいご/Keigo: high formality and honorifics in the Japanese language usually used in business settings), so I think I made a good impression!

After out meeting on Thursday, our boss took us to Asakusa to get a feel for what Tokyo was like back in the Edo Period. Asakusa houses many various tidbits in the Tokyo area, but we specifically went for the history. We first grabbed lunch in an old restaurant styled to that of a sumo area. For those that don't know, Sumo is (in a very dumbed down way) the traditional Japanese version of heavy-weight wrestling. We sat close to the center and our boss was explaining to us a little bit about the sumo culture. Traditionally, before competing, sumo wrestlers would eat what the Japanese call ちゃんこ(chanko). Chanko is a pot of boiling soup loaded with different meats (or seafood) and vegetables with a huge pot of rice and sashimi on the side. I, being the bottomless pit that I am, ordered the seafood chanko and finished all of it (keep in mind that these meals are feeding two/three hundred pound men). After we finished but were still too full to move, our boss told us a little bit more about the ceremony surrounding sumo wrestling. The sumo ground is sacred to those who "create their art on it" (my bosses words, not mine) and those who are tainted could not climb onto the platform. He pointed out signs all around the arena and, sure enough, those who were viewed as tainted in traditional Japanese culture were women. It's funny how cultures can be so different, yet be so similar. 

When we were able to finally hoist ourselves up, we went to the Edo Tokyo museum and got a tour by literally the smallest and oldest Japanese woman I've ever seen in my life. Learning about Tokyo's history and how it became what it is today was really eyeopening. I didn't know a lot of the specifics of the Tokugawa Shogunate and what traditional Japanese life was like back in the Edo Period. The dates of the museum ran from around the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

One thing that I found interesting in the museum was that there was absolutely NOTHING (and I can't emphasize nothing enough) about the Atomic Bombs during World War Two. Nothing, zip, zilch, nada. The museum had artifacts of US planes that the Japanese were able to shoot down during air raids, but when it came to that one thing that changed the course of Japan's history so significantly, not even a mention. 

So before this post becomes too long, I will wrap it up with some teasers for my next few posts:

Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Central Tokyo! 

Central Tokyo Tea House

The Land of the Morning Calm

I've made it to Seoul! The twelve hour flight wasn't too bad, but having a middle seat was. I was sandwiched between and cute Korean teenage girl and an 아저씨(ah-jeo-sshi: middle aged man). The girl was quite nice, though she didn't speak much English and the man was quite bitter about being on the flight next to a 외국인 (oe-guk-in: foreigner). Other than the tight space and the long duration, the flight was decent. I flew Korean Air and the service was incredible. Each stewardess spoke Chinese, Japanese, Korean and English. I was very impressed. The food was nice too. For dinner I had a traditional Korean rice dish called 비빔밥 (bi-bim-bap) and for breakfast I ate an omelette.

Here are just a few little shots I took when I got here 2 hours ago.

Waiting at my gate in Seoul. Notice the FB chat notification from the boyfriend.

Incheon International Airport

My exhaustion has caused this blog entry to sound like a first grader wrote it. I apologize. I promise to have better posts when I make it to Japan!

The Last-Minute Details

I FINALLY leave for Japan tomorrow! These last four days in San Diego have made me reflect on how far I've come since I was just a sophomore in high school with a passion for all things Japanese. Tomorrow is the day that I bring this dream to life!

This process has been both extremely exciting and extremely stressful. Having to collect all my medical documents, visa paperwork, school supplies and (oh yeah!) clothes within these past four days has made me realize the key to successful pre-departure planning is organization.

Needless to say, my biggest problem (and probably every girl who has traveled's biggest problem) is packing all my clothes in two suitcases that are under fifty pounds. The hardest lesson I've had to learn is editing my wardrobe. I don't need all twenty pairs of my shoes, nor do I need all ten of the oversized sweaters I live in. However, I will pass on a little tip that my parents have shared with me through their travel experiences: roll your clothes. It can help prevent wrinkling and you can fit a ton more into your suitcase! This little technique helped me travel through five European countries in a carry-on after I graduated from high school. Here's looking at you, Casas and Tanaka's 2010 Euro Crew!

The tip of the iceberg!

Along with packing and organizing my documented proof of existence, I've been bidding farewells to my family and friends. Throughout these four days, I was able to celebrate my oldest brother Greg's birthday, make some memories at Disneyland with my boyfriend Daniel, and have a "mini-elitist" meeting with my friend (who is coincidentally also named Daniel) from high school. I really will miss every single one of you! :)

A cloudy day at the happiest place on earth! 

On a random note, I received an awesome mini travel survival kit from Greg and his wife Sveta. It includes everything that a girl would need while she's traveling. It comes with things like makeup remover pads to aspirin to clear nail polish! I can't wait to put it to good use while I'm abroad. Thank you guys!

The awesome kit I received!

Asia-Land here I come! :)