However, it is a month's worth of updating and that is quite daunting to me. I mean, that sounds like hell. Just writing and staring at the screen for hours. Therefore, I am going to do a short update with lots of pictures from my travels and then go back and expand on stuff over the next week or two.
But first, this weekend I had the most American day ever! It started with a snowy day. Well, that isn't American, but I really like that first day of snow, everything is so clean and white. Oooh, white, white is American. A couple of my students called and asked if I wanted to go somewhere and of course I jumped on it. We (okay, they) decided we should go to Gifu on the other side of the mountains and do some stuff. So, we hop in the car and off we go.
The drive was great. The snow here is usually really really wet, I guess because the air temp is just hovering around freezing and the snow is almost rain, and the snow just hangs on the trees and covers everything. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera becuase it is a little too big to just put in my pocket, so no pics. Next big purchase, smaller camera. But it was really beautiful. Trust me on it. At one point in the drive we had to go through a one lane tunnel. Apparently the tunnel was originally a train tunnel, so it was really narrow and short and very creepy. Especially because there is a turn halfway through it and you can't see the other end of the tunnel (the tunnel was about a half a mile long I would say, not the shortest one lane tunnel in the world). There is a sign on either end, a red light/green light, but the light is about 3 minutes long and I bet some people have run that light at one time or another. Not the most nerve free two minutes of my life.
When we got to Gifu we went to Chorky's Diner!!! (Their three exclamation points, not mine) an American "50s" style diner. Sort of. They had lots of 50s stuff in there, but also stuff from the 90s like Taco Dorito bags and Betty Crocker brownie mix. And their menus had a Too Much Coffee Man comic as their background, an alternative comic from the mid to late 90s. Very strange mix of stuff. However, great hamburgers and milkshakes. Yum! The hamburger was on a croissant style bun so the bun was very light compared to the hamburger buns I normally get. And decent fries too. Which of course were dipped in the chocolate milkshake.
After our all American lunch we went to a shooting range! Well, an air rifle shooting range, but it was still pretty fun. Got to shoot giant air rifles with cool scopes to help aim and it was fun. Strange fact, no one in Japan is left handed. Well, supposedly. Jessica is left handed and she was talking about it to some people, and apparently left handed people don't exist in Japan. If a child is left handed they are taught to use their right hand instead. I find that hard to believe. In a country as obsessed with baseball as Japan is, wouldn't they want left handed pitchers? Anyway, the shooting range was set up for righties only. The stools were set on the ground to the left and the telescopes were set so you could lean over from sitting right handed to check out how you did. But, because I have a bad right eye I have always shot left and it was quite difficult for me to do. I didn't do too bad shooting, mostly bull's eyes or close to em. Whatever, it was fun as hell to go shooting and now I want to go to a real shooting range, which I don't think they have in Japan. Might have to go to Thailand one weekend, heard I can get there and back for under $500 total. Just to go shoot a machine gun. Awesome!
After our shooting adventure we stopped at a Portuguese pizza parlor, named Guto's hilariously enough, and had some delicious pizza. Big, thick sliced (at least by Japanese standards, almost thick enough to be considered thin sliced pizza in America) pizza covered with toppings. Had the meat trio with sausage, bacon, and ham. YUM! And the menu was in Portuguese not Japanese. I swear, for a minute in the pizza parlor I forgot that I was in Japan. I think it is because everyone I ever deal with speaks English and I never speak Japanese. And I wonder why I haven't improved my Japanese as much as I think I should have.
Okay so here is the quick overview of the last month.
Having Jessica here over the holidays was such a good thing for me.
Maybe not for her. Here she is looking terrified about me being near her. Notice my awesome headgear. That is my Rummy ass whoopin' headgear. I am the Japanese Rummy King. I destroy people at Rummy (well, I destroyed Jessica mightily every single game, never lost as far as I remember). One of the things we enjoyed doing was just hanging out and playing cards after a long day of work and travel (well, I worked, she traveled). It was really really nice to come home at night and have someone to just hang out with and talk to about my day. And she made me dinner a couple of times! Yay! That was really good too. Unfortunately, that meant it was my duty to wash dishes. Boo! My least favorite chore. That was probably my favorite part of her being here, having a very good friend here and simply being able to be myself and chat and make jokes and laugh and generally have a really nice time. Jessica will be the last person to tell you this, but she is a really good and caring person and it was nice to have someone here that cared about me over the holidays.
Cough cough Gay. Cough cough
This is Jessica's "can we move on now?" face. Trust me, I saw this face many times over the past month.
So, here are some of the things we did while she was here.
Saw Mt. Fuji. Now, I am not sure if you have ever heard of this mountain. It isn't very big or very well known, kind of like our own little secret place, but it was nice to look at.
Pretty darned impressive.
We went to Fuji five lakes, a touristy area near Mt. Fuji with excellent (see above photo) views of the Mountain itself. Now, I know it is called the hidden mountain, but it was just sitting out there for us to look at the whole three days (two days? I don't remember, everything runs together) without a care in the world. Damned self confident that mountain.
Here is the room we stayed in while at Mr. Fuji-san.
Traditional western room with tatami mats, paper sliding doors, one low table and futons stacked in the corner that were to be pulled out at night for sleeping. Pretty cool. Well, pretty warm actually, Jessica had the heater blasting all night long. As she said "I have been cold for three weeks, I am not being cold here." So my apartment is a bit chilly.
And we did lots of stuff there, went to a couple of caves, went to an Izakya and ate the greatest yakatori I have ever had (and paid through the nose for it) and generally did a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately, when I uploaded pics from my camera to my computer they didn't upload and I lost most of them. Most of the ones from Tokyo too. I am going to ask Jessica if I can use her photos to share. (Hey Jessica, I know you are going to read at least this entry, can I use your photos?)
The two photos I have of Tokyo both involve my jack-assery
Me drinking sake. Notice how I don't sip it. Nope, just swig it all down at once. Also, notice the long sleeved shirt. Yup, Tokyo, not a place to have a full sleeve tattoo showing. Plus, it is winter.
The first day we were there I forced Jessica to spend two hours searching for Burger King with me. This is her humoring by taking a picture. She is just so darned thrilled about being at Burger King, in Japan! Yum! I had two whoppers. The first one was just because whoppers are delicious, the second one was because I am a glutton. And that second one was hard to finish. I am not the man I used to be.
Tokyo New Year's. I got too drunk and puked and did not have a great night. Let's leave it at that. The day was fun though. Got to see all the expensive shopping areas and cool stores and freaky people and places. And we saw black people! Yay! I get so excited to see black people in Japan. Why? Obviously, I am a racist.
We came back to Tsuruga to a snow storm
First weather we hit the entire week. Pretty, but very cold and not so fun to walk in. Thank goodness for waterproof boots (thanks, Mom!) and scarves (thanks Alex's desire for Burberry! (note, I did not get a Burberry scarf, but as the first picture shows, I got one that looks similar while in Tokyo))
Then we went to Kyoto! whew, I am exhausted just writing about all we did.
The first thing we did when we got to Kyoto was to go to McDonald's for breakfast.
This was a huge treat for me since the McDonald's by my house doesn't serve breakfast and what is the absolute best part about McDonald's? Well Milkshakes of course. But besides that it is a sausage egg McMuffin. You have no idea how happy I am when I get to eat American fast food. I am such a fat ass.
Delicious! Oishi!
After that we went to Kinkaku-ji or the Golden pavilion.
It is a temple covered in gold! And since I am Japanese I had to take a picture of myself standing in front of it to prove that I was there
Yup, that is me standing in front of the Golden Temple. Sweet.
Eh. It was okay. I mean, it is neat that there is a temple covered in gold, but it isn't like you can either go in it or get close to it and the hundreds of other people there make it kind of lose it's special charm. It is no McDonald's breakfast.
Then came the best part of the trip (for me at least). We went to Monkey Park!
It's a place where you can feed monkeys! Notice how nervous Jessica looks in that picture. Why would she be nervous, the monkeys are in a cage. Nope. That cage is for people to go into so they don't get attacked by the monkeys.
Here is Jessica walking right by a monkey. I took this picture for evidence in case the monkey attacked and killed her. That monkey was giving me the stink eye and then started following Jessica up the path. It was nerve-wracking to say the least.
Here's dozens of monkeys following around the guy with food. Yeah, if you don't think that was insanity, well, you are crazier than a barrel full of monkeys (see what I did there?! Goddamn I am funny!).
Monkey Park (really should be called Monkey Mountain, but whatever) was easily my favorite thing about Japan so far. It was well worth the 500 or 600 yen admission. If you are ever in Japan and around Kyoto, I cannot recommend going to Monkey Mountain enough. They are open every day, except for heavy snow or tsunamis.
Then we went to Obama and bought Obama for Obama t-shirts because we are dorks. And I haven't uploaded those pictures yet so there is no evidence. And I am tired and have been writing this for the past two hours. Therefore, that is it for now.
All in all I loved having Jessica here. It was so nice to have someone to joke around and hang out with. And most of all she is a really good friend of mine and I missed her a lot so it was nice to see her and be around her for a month. And now, of course, I miss her all over again. Shoganai.
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