Japan: Day 1
Woke up this morning about 6-ish, and actually managed to get out of bed <20 minutes after my alarm went off. (It's still O2 from Code Geass, which I find amusing.) Sally got up a bit after me and we were both dressed and ready to go by 6:40, so we had time to chill before our meeting with sensei and the other students at 7 in the restaurant downstairs.
When we meandered down there, breakfast was awesome. Bacon and boiled eggs (YAY!) and miso soup and all sorts of things. Very nice. We then chilled for a while and Lawrence, Brady, Caitlin, Amil and I wandered around the area, killing time and checking out parks and shops and stuff that was within walking distance. We found a park with some interesting sculptures and a water... fountain? Sorta... It was odd, and I got some pictures because instead of it being something that you could fill a water bottle with or drink from, it shot water up into the air about 10 feet or so.
We then all went back, met up, and headed to Aoyama Icchome, the nearby station, and caught the Oeda line to Ryogoku, which is near to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. When we got inside, sensei got an English-speaking tour guide to come show us around. I noticed that this guy tacked on to our tour - I think he was either European or Australian. My bet is either Australian or German. He didn't talk, but he listened in the whole time. It wasn't creepy or anything, just something that I noticed. But the tour guide was really cool and had a lot of fun stories to share about Japan's history.
At the end we stopped by the gift shop and I picked up a keychain and some postcards with some beautiful artwork on them, and then sensei headed off somewhere and the rest of us wandered around to find a place to eat lunch. We found a place called Kitchen Kokoro and we ended up taking up more than half the room in there (VERY small - there were only 7 of us!), but the food was awesome (I had seafood spaghetti =D) and I don't think we irritated them too much, though language barrier? Ha... yeaaaah... >_>
After that we wandered around some more before getting back on the subway and back to Aoyama. We then split up and Sally, Cory, and I went to the room to clean up and work on our papers. Got that finished pretty quickly, then we headed out to find dinner. We wandered around for a while and took lots of pictures (and I picked up a notebook for the homework papers because I'd rather turn in physical papers than e-mail them all the time) The place we eventually settled on for dinner was called Ichiban dori, but it was... :\ All the other places included tax and tip with everything already, so you didn't really pay more than the price was, at least not much, but we got a surprise appetizer which cost us another 700円, which was un-fun.
THEN we wandered over to Cafe Croissant and got some dessert, and then we headed to a conbini to pick up some snacks. I got a chocolate-filled croissant, sea salt potato sticks, and soda candy, as well as more milk tea. I'm addicted to the milk tea from the vending machine across the street. Fortunately it's on the way to the station, so I can keep getting it.
After that we meandered back to the hotel and I began uploading photos. I've got 'em all off the card now, but not all of 'em up on Facebook yet.
But that's it, sorta short and stuff but not really? IDK. Check out my Facebook for photos and stuff. I may link to it here later, depends.
Well, I think it's time for a shower and some sleep. Tomorrow is Studio Ghibli day!!!! ♥
When we meandered down there, breakfast was awesome. Bacon and boiled eggs (YAY!) and miso soup and all sorts of things. Very nice. We then chilled for a while and Lawrence, Brady, Caitlin, Amil and I wandered around the area, killing time and checking out parks and shops and stuff that was within walking distance. We found a park with some interesting sculptures and a water... fountain? Sorta... It was odd, and I got some pictures because instead of it being something that you could fill a water bottle with or drink from, it shot water up into the air about 10 feet or so.
We then all went back, met up, and headed to Aoyama Icchome, the nearby station, and caught the Oeda line to Ryogoku, which is near to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. When we got inside, sensei got an English-speaking tour guide to come show us around. I noticed that this guy tacked on to our tour - I think he was either European or Australian. My bet is either Australian or German. He didn't talk, but he listened in the whole time. It wasn't creepy or anything, just something that I noticed. But the tour guide was really cool and had a lot of fun stories to share about Japan's history.
At the end we stopped by the gift shop and I picked up a keychain and some postcards with some beautiful artwork on them, and then sensei headed off somewhere and the rest of us wandered around to find a place to eat lunch. We found a place called Kitchen Kokoro and we ended up taking up more than half the room in there (VERY small - there were only 7 of us!), but the food was awesome (I had seafood spaghetti =D) and I don't think we irritated them too much, though language barrier? Ha... yeaaaah... >_>
After that we wandered around some more before getting back on the subway and back to Aoyama. We then split up and Sally, Cory, and I went to the room to clean up and work on our papers. Got that finished pretty quickly, then we headed out to find dinner. We wandered around for a while and took lots of pictures (and I picked up a notebook for the homework papers because I'd rather turn in physical papers than e-mail them all the time) The place we eventually settled on for dinner was called Ichiban dori, but it was... :\ All the other places included tax and tip with everything already, so you didn't really pay more than the price was, at least not much, but we got a surprise appetizer which cost us another 700円, which was un-fun.
THEN we wandered over to Cafe Croissant and got some dessert, and then we headed to a conbini to pick up some snacks. I got a chocolate-filled croissant, sea salt potato sticks, and soda candy, as well as more milk tea. I'm addicted to the milk tea from the vending machine across the street. Fortunately it's on the way to the station, so I can keep getting it.
After that we meandered back to the hotel and I began uploading photos. I've got 'em all off the card now, but not all of 'em up on Facebook yet.
But that's it, sorta short and stuff but not really? IDK. Check out my Facebook for photos and stuff. I may link to it here later, depends.
Well, I think it's time for a shower and some sleep. Tomorrow is Studio Ghibli day!!!! ♥