I can't believe it's been three weeks since I've posted something! I've been incredibly busy. The day after my last post I had a great time at my bonenkai. I went out with my coworkers from Shinozaki to a great sushi restaurant where we ate and drank for almost three hours! Everyone brought a 500 yen present to dinner for a Christmas game. I bought a small, reusable grocery bag as my gift. Halfway through the meal we were separated into teams by our tables. Each team was given a bingo card and we played bingo. When a team got bingo, everyone from that team got a random present. The presents were opened in front of everyone and the person who originally brought the gift was always acknowledges. We played until everyone had gotten a present. I got two small cupcakes and they were delicious! I didn't go to the nijikai (second party) because I had to get up at 7:00 AM the next morning to catch the train to Tokyo!
Patrick and I boarded the shinkansen for Tokyo at 7:46 AM Saturday morning and arrived in Shinagawa station around 1:00 PM. Our hotel was only a minute or two walk from the station and we were on the 22nd floor, so we had an amazing view of the city! We had a great time in Tokyo! We went shopping in Shibuya, exploring in Akihabara, sightseeing in Asakusa, walking in Shinjuku, people watching in Harajuku, museum hopping in Ueno, and partying in Roppongi. We meet Aiyaka, a friend of Patrick's from Fukuoka who was also visiting Tokyo, and went out with her and her friends during our second night in Tokyo. I went out a few more times with one of Aiyaka's friends who lives in Tokyo and knew a lot of great places to go! She was really nice and even met Patrick and I for lunch on the day we left. Patrick and I made it up Tokyo Tower and to the Skytree. We did a lot of sightseeing all over the city as well as a lot of shopping. I also did a lot of exploring on my own, mostly in Shinjuku and Ueno. I was really excited to be back in Tokyo after spending a month there with HIJ 2012!
Christmas Eve, although it was my first away from family, was amazing! Patrick and I went out in Shibuya with another friend of ours, Aki. We had a great dinner at a restaurant Aki knew. It wasn't very fancy, but it was good food! It was an izakaya, so it had a lot of different food for us to try. We spent the night going out to various bars, making new friends, singing karaoke, and even getting a few small gifts. It was a great night and I still can't believe I spent Christmas in Tokyo!
As much fun as I had in Tokyo, I was very happy to come back to Kitakyushu. Especially knowing my family would be getting into Fukuoka that same night! Their plane landed around 9:45 PM, so they went straight to their hotel and then to bed. I didn't meet them until the next morning, but it was so great to see them! We spent our first day together looking around Fukuoka city. I ended up running into a friend of mine, Tomoko, on the train from Kokura (near me) to Hakata (where my parents and brother were staying). Whe was also heading into Fukuoka for a concert, so we decided to got dinner together that night with my family after her concert.
The next morning we woke up and took the shinkansen to Kyoto! For Christmas, my brother and I booked a ryokan, Japanese style hotel, in Kyoto for my parents and us to stay in. I wanted them to be able to see the more traditional side of Japan. Since it was the day before New Years, it was very crowded! It's traditional in Japan for people to visit family and go to temples around New Years. Although people often visit temples after New Years, the temples were still very busy! We got to Kyoto pretty late, but we still managed to see the Yasaka shrine. It's not a very big or famous shrine, but it was near our ryokan and it looked really nice at night, especially with all the New Years decorations on it. We started the following day by going to 金閣寺(Kinkakuji, Golden Pavilion). It was great to go back somewhere I had enjoyed visiting before and to show my family one of the most famous places in Kyoto. We also went to the 伏見稲荷大社 (Fushimi Inari Taisha) shrine, the head shrine to Inari (god of rice). I had not been there before and it was amazing! It had thousands of torii gates leading up a mountain. There were so many gates that it felt like a tunnel when walking through!
We were only in Kyoto for one night, so we caught a shinkansen back to Kitakyushu after seeing the temple and shrine. My brother and I met some of my friends, Dave and Andy, that night and had a good welcome back to Kitakyushu. The next day we spent walking around Kitakyushu. We saw Riverwalk, Kokura Castle, and ChaCha Town. I also got to show my parents my apartment. My brother and I went out again with Dave and Andy that night for New Years. We were joined by Leah and Patrick. We spent most of New Years Eve hanging out around my table, but went to Riverwalk next to Kokura Castle before midnight. There were food vendors set up along the river and we had a great night counting down to the new year surrounded by people.
Shops had vendors set up as well and started selling bags at midnight. Slightly similar to our Black Friday, Japan has a lot of sales right after New Years. Although it is not nearly as intense as back home, shops often offer grab bags and huge sales. The grab bags are full of items that together are worth much more than what you paid for the bag, but you don't know what items you got until you open it at home. While still at school, many of my coworkers urged me to get a grab bag at New Years, so I thought it would be fun to get one. I bought a grab bag from a stationary store for about $20 and I go so many things! I'm really happy I got it!
The next day was pretty uneventful, but we did get to the big temple between Riverwalk and Kokura Castle. All the food vendors were still up and the temple was packed with people. We thought about going to ring the bell at the temple, something traditionally done on New Years, but there was a huge crowd of people all waiting to ring the bell and we decided against it. We did get fortunes from the temple before continuing on our way. The next day Mom, Dad, and Dave all went to Hiroshima, but since I didn't have a rail pass I decided not to go. They enjoyed their trip and we had dinner together that night after they came back to Kitakyushu.
The next day we all went down to Kagoshima, the southern most stop on the shinkansen. We had a good time going to the aquarium there and took the ferry to Sakurajima, one of the most active volcanos in Japan! Sakurajima used to be an island, but because of the amount of lava produced from an eruption in 1914 it actually connected to the mainland and became a peninsula. We started on a tour bus, but decided to go to the lava observatory instead. We took a city bus to the park where everything was covered in ash. We were much closer to the volcano and had a great view of the smoking peak. There was not an eruption with lava that day, so we were unable to see any on the volcano. We still had a great time looking around and I was happy to get to see more of Kyushu!
I took a tons of trips and got to spend a lot of time with friends and family! I couldn't have asked for a better first holiday season away from home! I got a lot of great gifts and I've had a great vacation. I go back to school on Wednesday and I'm getting together with all the JETs who will hopefully be back by then!
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