Here is part 3 of the big catch-up. Let me know if you want more details on any of this by leaving a comment.

Leaving to visit my buddy Justin Klein

• My good friend from middle school / university, Justin Klein, has been studying in Japan for the last year an a half
• He is about to go home (mid February) so I wanted to visit him before he left and see his daily life, how his Japanese was coming, and see Japan for the first time
• I was going to fly from LAX to Osaka and then take a train to Kyoto where he lives
• LAX’s international terminal, however, was TERRIBLE and it took me an hour and half just to get my bag screened by the TSA
• The JAL ticket agents were equally stupid though. They had an Osaka flight leaving at 12 and a Tokyo flight leaving at 2. Instead of getting all the passengers for Osaka out first, they insisted on helping the HUGE tour group that showed up for the Tokyo flight. It was only 20 minutes before departure that they finally started checking in the Osaka people that were behind the Tokyo group.
• Our flight wound up leaving over an hour late
• We were in a 747 with a cool entertainment system that allowed you to choose your own movie
• I got an exit row so I had a TON of leg room
• The stewardess who just happened to sit right in front of me was from Shanghai so we talked for a LONG time in Chinese which was REALLY cool. I was worried about having forgotten most of my Chinese during my month outside of China, but it all came right back
• After a little while, I asked her if she knew many foreigners, and she said she knew one guy who lived in Shijiazhuang who had hung out with her in Shanghai. After a little “it is such a small world talk” about how I also study there, I realized that she was talking about one of my close friends, Ryan, who goes to the same school as me. SMALL WORLD!

Once in Osaka, it was easy to get out of the airport, except for the customs guy

• I was going to be meeting Justin outside the train station, so I didn’t have a hotel name or address
• There was a box on the customs form for an address, and the agent said that I couldn’t enter Japan because I didn’t have an address. Ummm….what do you want me to do then!?!?!? Stay in the customs area of the airport?
• Justin had told me about how insistent Japanese people could be about following the rules down to every last detail, and this was clearly a case of that
• After about 10 minutes, he finally let me just write Justin’s name down and go through…..Dick

Train from Osaka to Kyoto

• Transportation in Japan is EXTREMELY expensive. A 3 hour bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo one way costs over $100. Justin thus had me buy an unlimited rail pass while in the US
• It was very easy to activate it at the Osaka airport station, and I made a reservation for a train that went directly from Osaka to Kyoto
• When the train pulled into the station, an announcement came on over the speaker that said please wait while we clean the train. All the Japanese people did not crowd the train or try and push their way on so that they could find space for their bags, but waited patiently in a line by the open door as they cleaned the train for 15 minutes
• The seats all did this cool auto-rotate thing so that the all faced the direction the train was headed. If you were in a group, however, you could rotate one bench around so you would all be facing each other
• As the conductors came around the train, the would enter a car, bow, walk through the car, and then bow again as they left the car. I felt a little strange
• On the way to Kyoto, one of the stops was tenjiku. I looked out the window and saw the Chinese character for tian, which was changed in Japanese to ten: 天 COOL!

The Kyoto station was huge

• Justin was waiting for me with Chie (Korean), Betty (Taiwanese), and one other girl
• It was great to see Justin who hadn’t changed at all, but I was instantly confused as he was speaking solely Japanese. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had never seen him speak anything but English, and it was very strange seeing someone I had known for so long speak a language I couldn’t understand. He spoke really quickly, and didn’t have to repeat anything. I was blown away.
• We took a bus back to his house. He has a small one bedroom apartment about as big as my bathroom in China. It really highlighted the differences between the two countries.
• We went over to I-House to get a bike. Betty was kind enough to loan me her bicycle for my entire visit….THANKS!
• Justin and I then went to eat some Ramen which was fantastic
• By the time we got done eating, it was late and I was exhausted from the day of travel, so we just crashed out

First day in Japan

• Justin only had one commitment during my entire visit which would keep him occupied until 3pm the first day
• While he took his final, I went to the gold pavilion, a zen rock garden, and the temple right down the street from his house. They were all quite beautiful, and traveling around Kyoto by bike gave me the “Japan feeling”
• When Justin got back, we immediately took off to get as much of Kyoto done as possible in the hope of making it to Tokyo. We did a quick tour of the philosophers path, imperial garden / palace, historic Gion (where we saw 2 Geisha girls and Peter Macintosh), downtown Kyoto, book-off (a 5 story comic book shop), and a huge toy gun store. We ate some matcha parfait and ice cream in one of Gion’s famous matcha shops, saw the weird dance guy, and had dinner at a sushi restaurant with a revolving belt with various types of sushi that ran around the whole restaurant. They even had horse sushi.

Second day in Japan

• Today we took a train to see some of the sites around Kyoto. Our first stop was the Fushimi Inari temple. You might remember the torii gates of this temple from the movie Memoirs of a Geisha. There is a scene where the little girl runs through a gazillion red arches. Well….the movie doesn’t do the place justice. The number of gates is simply amazing!
• The next stop was Nara, which is a city with thousands of deer running around. Justin of course, had to make them go crazy by feeding them paper
• We met Justin’s friend Miho in Nara, ate an amazing burger at Mos burger, saw the temples and sites, and did this weird Japanese photo booth thing.
• We then came back to Kyoto, wandered around the Kyoto station looking at the Kyoto skyline, and then crashed in preparation for Tokyo the next day

We woke up early and did a quick tour of the area north of Justin’s house

• Our first stop was the sex temple, complete with statutes of penises and vaginas (Yes….japan is total dichotomy)
• Then it was off to the countryside to see some rice fields and obscure temples. There are vending machines everywhere in japan, and we managed to find a vegetable vending machine.
• We then took a short train ride to see some cool gorges and a tiny village
• After a few hours exploring, we came back, rounded up or stuff, and left for the train station to board a bullet train bound for TOKYO!!!!!

NEXT STOP…..TOKYO!!!!!!