Japanese Diary - A brief recap!

Okay, we are absolutely going to gloss over the fact that I haven't posted in too long and I'm just going to pick up where I left of by filling in the massive gap with a wonderful recap of all the things worth noting in between! (Shhhh just go along with it)

So, where did I last leave off? Sometime in September I think (uhhhh)! Since then, I've done a ton of stuff, my mum and sister Tamla came to visit me and we went to Nara and Disneyland and a load of other stuff, I finally went to Kyoto, went to pet expo, I took a JLPT exam, I actually went home for Christmas (but still managed to do some cool things!), my friend Alex came back with me from England and we spent New Year together, I've visited a ton of temples and shrines, I baked a lot, a POKEMON GYM opened nearby, I bought a lot (I dress way cuter now) and pretty much the list of things goes on.

I swear, this will just be a brief post and then I will bombard with loads of extra posts about each major event individually until I've made up for my lazy absence! So with that, lets go!

Okay, so, to start off, in October I had the wonderful pleasure of being visited by my mum and oldest little sister Tamla for 10 days! It was a very jam-packed week and a bit to be honest, we managed to fit so much in and were completely exhausted by the end of it, but it was their first time visiting Japan and we had so much fun! I'm going to be writing about the week in it's own post I think, there is just toooo much to fit in to here, and it includes two days in Tokyo and Tokyo Disneyland, a day in Nara, a trip to the top of the Umeda Sky Tower, and more!

In November I FINALLY after being here SO LONG made it to Kyoto for a day trip! I went with a Japanese friend, my teachers daughter Erika, as she goes to Kyoto University and could show me around! We spent time around Gion and the shrines and gardens, and then we to the Kyoto University School Festival to have a look around! I ate some chameleon yakisoba, made by the science clubs food stall (It changed colour when you added lemon juice! it was amazing!) and we wandered around various university club exhibitions, including the calligraphy, origami and pokemon club, and held a cute lizard in some sort of science related club room, and there was traditional Japanese dancing to watch too, it was all pretty busy. After that we went wandering round a few of the shops near Gion and found the KitKat Chocolatory store. Now, anyone who knows me knows how much I love kitkats so this was pretty much heaven for me!

In November I also went to pet expo with my host family and the dogs! It was a pretty incredible experience, a huge convention hall filled with people and their pets, sooooo many cute dogs, almost all wearing clothes, some wearing sunglasses, there was a goat on a lead and a stall from a company that organises pet weddings, complete with cake!

Another thing I did with my host family was visit Tanzan Jinja, a shrine on a mountain nearby, to view the momiji, or the autumn leaves. It was a rainy day, but it was actually breathtakingly beautiful to see so many colours in the leaves, and I took so many photographs! My personal reccomendation is for everyone to visit Japan in the Autumn, it is really the best season to see Japan in all its beauty, without the heat of summer, or the price of spring!

Behold, my expert photography skills

December started off with me pretty immediately taking the JLPT at level N5. Exams are scary, but I revised hard and still have no idea if I passed, the results should be coming out next week!

I then spent half of the month back in England, Christmas is a pretty important time to spend together in my family and there is absolutely no way I could have coped not seeing them all over Christmas! I also got to spend some lovely time with my boyfriend, Jason, long distance relationships are hard but not impossible, but it did feel so much better to be together again! I also got to enjoy my AMAZING Christmas present from him, which was tickets to the Pokemon Symphonic Evolutions orchestral concert in London! There was something truly magical about listening to all of the music from the pokemon games being played in a theatre by the London philharmonic, especially when it ended with a sing-a-long of 'I want to be the very best'! But overall I had a pretty typical Christmas surrounded by my family, it was really great!

The end of December, when I returned to Osaka, I was joined by my cool friend Alex 'The Blue Girl'. As my host family were going away for a few days over new year and didn't want me to be lonely, they said I could invite a friend to stay if I wanted to, and then we proceeded to cram as much activity into every single possible minute that we could whilst she was here! We did Nara, Kyoto, soooooo much shopping, went to Expo City, we stayed overnight in a buddhist temple on top of a mountain, on new years ever we went for midnight at Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, we went to an owl cafe, literally just so much that its getting its own blog post!!!

So yeah, maybe I have had a lot going on the last few months but that still doesn't excuse me from my lack of posting. ごめんなさいいいいい！

Okay, that was a not so brief catch up, but more detailed accounts of some things will be following... sometime I guess, but for now, またね〜 From Osaka!

Japanese Diary - Mount Fuji!

In a bizarre turn of events, it turns out that in just 10 days I will be climbing Mount Fuji with a friend I met here in Osaka. We kinda talked about it for a little while, then all of a sudden we've started booking things and making sure we have appropriate climbing gear?!

Ah, for a little more clarification, Mount Fuji is actually only open to climbers (that aren't professional, and crazy) from early July to early September, as that is the only time that there is little enough snow to actually reach the summit. Apparently its tough, but manageable for amateur climbers. Which is good, as my experience with mountains is 'once I walked across Dartmoor for about 10 minutes, then back to the car'. But I should be climbing it over a weekend, here is my plan in a little more detail:

 We will get an overnight bus from Osaka to Tokyo on the 24th July, arriving at Kawaguchiko station (near Tokyo) at 8.30am on Saturday 25th. From there we will get the shuttle bus to Mount Fuji’s 5th station, about 1/3 of the way up the mountain. After adjusting to the change in altitude for an hour or so (and probably grabbing breakfast)  we'll start climbing Fuji's Yoshida trail, the easiest and most popular trail, and hike for around 5 hours till we reach the 8th station, where we will be staying overnight and leaving again around 3am to hike the last hour and a half to reach the summit for the sunrise. Then I can't wait to post postcards from Japan's highest post office, and have ramen on the summit too. Then we have a 3-4 hour climb back down before getting the bus back to Osaka (ready for work on Monday morning waaah)

I also felt like I really wanted to make this for a good cause, so I decide to set up a just giving page to support Rowcroft Hospice! They do really amazing things and it would be really great if I could do this cool thing whilst also raising a bit of money for them.

Please feel free to donate towards me here!

Have some Mount Fuji Facts (possibly to beef this post out a little and make you think you learned something) 

Mount Fuji (Fuji-san, 富士山 in Japanese) is the highest volcano and highest peak in Japan and considered one of the 3 Holy Mountains (along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku). Fuji is a perfect, beautiful stratovolcano about 60 miles south-west of Tokyo, with an exceptionally symmetrical shape making it into famous symbol of Japan and an important element in Japanese art. It is a popular destination for excursions. More than 200,000 people climb to the top of the Mt Fuji every year. The last eruption of Mt Fuji was in 1707–08. Between 2000 and 2001, seismic activity under the volcano was at slightly elevated levels, rising concern about a possible reawakening of the volcano. 

Gotta get to the top of that...

I'll be posting at least an update when I have finished, maybe even something from on top of the mountain (It has WiFi now...) So keep tuned~

But for now, またね〜 From Osaka

And maybe please consider donating for my climb that'd be cool of you! Click :D 

Japanese Diary - Tokyo Disney Resort, Land and Sea!

Obviously bought a Minnie Mouse Headband

Tokyo DisneyLand and DisneySea! My excitement cannot be hidden!

Disney was always going to be one of my favourite parts of my stop in Tokyo, this was my third time to Tokyo Disneyland, but my first to DisneySea, and I was absolutely not disappointed. We went to DisneyLand on the first day, which was definitely the best decision (more on that when I get to the bit about Sea!), and it wasn't even too busy! We managed to do every major attraction we wanted, and loads of smaller ones too! The biggest disappointment for me though was that 'Star Tours' was closed for improvements! We still came back to check it hadn't reopened through the day though, and at one point there were a bunch of Stormtroopers hanging around. But I was too slow to get a photo with them, boo! As that was meant to be our first stop, we then proceeded to my favourite roller coaster, Space Mountain! To be honest I think Tomorrowland is my favourite area of DisneyLand (and that makes me super psyched that they've made a film about it!) and we ended up spending a pretty big chunk of our time there, between wandering back and forth the other areas and rides. So we covered all the major rides, Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain (I got absolutely soaked by the way, and no one else was even that damp :/), It's a small World, Pirates of the Caribbean etc. etc. Though I want to add the animatronics on the rides that have them were absolutely amazing! Pirates of the Caribbean could easily have been real people and Jack Sparrow was spot on... We ate a ton of great, cute food too (of course) didn't get a chance to eat my favourite pizza but the food we did eat was amazing, just look at these waffles!

Disney themed strawberry custard waffles
- how could I not?

The Electric Parade was one of the most
beautiful things ever!

I think one of the highlights though was the parades! It was still the Easter festival, so in the day it was the Easter parade, so lively and exciting! Didn't get a video or anything thought as I was just too in awe, but go look up a video on you tube, the song was so catchy! In the evening though, it was something really special! The Tokyo electrical parade was probably one of the most beautiful things I've seen! Millions of tiny LED's lit up the floats, characters and costumes and it was so creative and I highly recommend staying to watch it if it's on, it's amazing! 
Thought unfortunately, as the parade was just ending it started to rain, so the fireworks were cancelled, which is a shame because last year when I went they were cancelled too because of strong winds, and I was really looking forward to them! So after the parade we left, exhausted, knowing we were going to be back in, I think it was less than about 10 hours!

The first thing to greet you as you enter
Disneysea!

So this was my first time to DisneySea, as I said, and I was REALLY excited. As I also said, we definitely chose the best day to go, as it was inconsistently raining all day, but not too much, and that meant the park was super empty! I don't think we had a queue longer than 35 minutes, we didn't even need to use our fast-passes and we went on most rides at least twice!
So DisneySea is 100% my favourite theme park I have ever been to, ever. Maybe I just don't remember Disney Florida well enough? But trust me, DS is amazing. From the huge Volcano in the centre of the park (that occasionally erupts, and is also a rollercoaster!) to the outline of Hotel Hightower in the distance (Tower of Terror!), there is tons to explore in between, and this Disney is definitely a different experience from any other Disney Park. 

Ariels Lagoon!

You have 7 'ports-of-call' to explore, Mediterranean Harbor, Mysterious Island, Mermaid Lagoon, Arabian Coast, Lost River Delta, Port Discovery and American Waterfront, and there's seriously so many unique attractions at all of them I wish I could have gone back more days (Definitely planning to go again!). The ride I have to recommend the most though is Journey to the center of the Earth. We went on it twice, and despite the ride stopping for 10 minutes with us in a dark room on the first run, it was still absolutely incredible and I would happily go on it again and again! Not to spoil to much but if you love super fast paced rides then you will love this, and you will also probably not expect any of it. Another one of my favourites was Tower of Terror, of course! I have only been on the one in Florida for comparison, but I know for a fact this is a very different experience to that one. The concept is the same, it's still a terrifying drop ride, but this one has a unique story as it is not part of The Twilight Zone like all the others are. We only got to ride it once, but to be honest the story (and effects!) were freaky enough that once was enough.To be honest, the more I think about it, the more favourites I may have to add to this list, because we also rode the Indiana Jones ride twice, just as dramatic the second time (and I also had to comfort a terrified Japanese lady who didn't like roller coasters) and I want to special mention the Toy Story Shooting game, the 3D effects were incredible and it was so much fun! (Though my score was 59,000 I think, and high score of the day was over 2 Million!)
Though we didn't stay for the night parade, we did catch the end of the daytime one (after coming out of lunch, a beautiful Italian Restaurant in Mini Venice, part of Mediterranean harbour!) and it was fantastic! The center of Mediterranean harbour is, of course, a harbour, so the parade was on boats! It was really lively and colourful, with some really cute characters making a big appearance (Such as Marie the Aristocat and Stitch!) and then there were JETSKIS. I don't really know why I found this part so exciting but I did, haha.

The volcano in the centre was amazing!

The Volcano in Action!

It's completely possible that this blog may have gone on a bit longer than I intended it too, whoops! But it's super difficult to contain my enthusiasm about Disney, or theme parks, so this was inevitable really! If there's anything I didn't specifically cover here that you might be wondering about Tokyo Disney Resort, please leave me a comment and I'll get back to you!

So for now, またね〜 From Osaka, and I'm hoping to have the rest of my settling in blog by the end of this week and then a proper diary should be starting, about time! I've been here over a month already! Waaah Time really does fly~

Japanese diary - Arrival in Japan, Part One

こんにちは、みんなさん！
Hi everyone!
This is going to be the start of my hopefully weekly diary (that I will try and upload every Sunday,  apparently!) although this first entry will be a little longer as its been more than two weeks since I arrived here now and a lot has happened including a few busy days in Tokyo and settling in to my new 'home' here in Osaka.

First I think it best if I start from the beginning of my trip, which began by leaving from London Heathrow at 6am, on the 14th May, with my little sister Ellie. It was a long day of travel, and actually a lot of it seems like a hazy memory from long ago and it seems strange to think it was only a few weeks ago! From Heathrow we flew to Rome, to catch a connecting flight to Tokyo. We had quite a long transit in Rome, 5 hours, and also a stressful few minutes before we we're about to board when we thought we might be in the wrong terminal (we weren't!), but we managed to eat an authentic Italian pizza and charge our phones whilst we hung around. The flight wasn't too bad, the food was actually really good! And I managed to watch Lego Movie, Frozen and Big Hero 6, so I was pretty entertained.
Arriving in Tokyo, Ellie and I planned to stay for 5 days before I flew out to Osaka and she left for new Zealand!

I think we covered quite a lot in Tokyo, we visited all the main shopping districts except Akihabara, spent a day at Ueno zoo and managed to visit both Disney Parks (land and sea) in two consecutive days, though we we're completely exhausted by the end of it. I think I'd really love to give the Disney resorts their own post, so I'll save that till I have internet access on my laptop and can upload all my hundreds of Disney photos!

Ueno zoo I still have slightly mixed feelings about, although it was amazing to see some of the animals we did, some enclosures we're just not as spacious and looked after as I wanted them to be. And I now know this isn't just a cultural thing as I have since been to another zoo in Japan (Wakayama adventure world, it will get it's own post!) And I know the animals there were very very well cared for. Really, I think Ueno zoo could do with upping it's entrance fees, it was just so cheap to get in (I've actually forgotten how much but definitely less than ¥500) and if it was a little more they might be able to improve a few of the enclosures with that money. Though it was kind of a negative visit,  I still enjoyed the day and some parts weren't bad, there was a very impressive Vivarium and nocturnal house, and the petting zoo area was very cute!

So apart from the zoo and Disney, I mentioned already that we went to all the major shopping districts (except akiba) despite the fact neither of us had a single inch of space in our luggage! We spent a lot of time in Shibuya mostly, going for the Hachiko statue and staying for shibuya109. If anyone reading this doesn't know the story of Hachi, please go look it up immediately, especially if you love dogs or animals at all. Its one of my favourite true stories of all time, and will make you cry. Shibuya109 is the iconic shop on the other side the scramble crossing from the Hachiko exit of the train station. A huge 10 story fashion store filled with tons of small boutiques and shops, covering all the different styles from Gothic to high street fashion to super cute, with even a few sports fashion stores thrown in. Yeah that's a thing.
As well as Shibuya, we spent almost a whole day in Harajuku, Takeshita dori will always be one of my favourites even though it's so difficult to navigate!

To be honest,  I probably left this entry a little late to write, as I realise now I'm already a bit foggy on a lot of the details. I think for now, I'm going to make this a part one, part two will cover my initial few weeks in Osaka (I know you're all dead excited!) And I also have a ton to write about Disney and Wakayama and everything, but luckily I'm finally getting internet on my laptop on Thursday so that should make it a lot easier to write up these entries!

So for now, またね~ from Osaka and keep tuned for more of my exciting adventures!

My Time in Japan, Part 1!

So, is everyone ready to hear about my amazing adventure in Japan? For those unaware already, this past summer I travelled to Yokohama in Japan to study at Yokohama Design College, where I attended Japanese language and culture lessons for one month! I had the most amazing time of my life, despite the humidity, typhoons and bugs! I met some amazing friends, ate some amazing food, had some amazing experiences and brought back a load of amazing souvenirs!

Day 0 in Japan: So long, England! See you in a month! #travelling #japan #adventure

A photo posted by Jazz Thornton (@roverandomness) on Jul 7, 2014 at 4:15am PDT

The flight was an insane 12 hours... I was pretty lucky to get a direct flight though! I think I watched the lego movie twice, and slept some, also made friends with the guy sat next to me which definitely made it more bearable! Funny story, in the lobby before boarding we were both taking selfies with the plane and laughing at each other, and it just so happened that on a plane of 500 people we ended up being sat next to one another!

Day 1 in Japan: Well, I made it! #japan #travelling #adventure

A photo posted by Jazz Thornton (@roverandomness) on Jul 7, 2014 at 7:21pm PDT

The only other event of the flight though, a much less enjoyable sudden ear pain that I had gotten... I had been suffering with an ear infection prior to flying out that I thought I had gotten over, apparently I hadn't and it turns out that the next week of my life, no matter how amazing in Japan, was going to be incredibly painful. I'm still mega grateful to Robbie though (The guy I was sat next to!) as he managed to get me some painkillers and checked I was alright throughout the flight! Once we landed, I had a few hours to wait for my lift from the airport, and Robbie had a couple of hours till his conecting flight to Okinawa, so we had a nice breakfast (dinner? Lunch? Time zone confusion) together, I went to 'bagel and bagel'! It was sad when we had to part, and I still regret not getting some contact details to keep in touch since :(

Day 2 in Japan: Today I went exploring Yokohama, my accommodation is right next to a 24 hour mcdonalds... Also went to the Pokemon centre and got a new phone case! #japan #travelling #adventure

A photo posted by Jazz Thornton (@roverandomness) on Jul 7, 2014 at 3:50am PDT

After settling into my fairly quaint student accommodation all by myself, I decided to start exploring Japan immediately! I was super lucky, actually, that through this very blog I managed to meet a fellow Brit (Infact, the only other English person on the same course) before we both left for Japan! I met with Nikki for the very first time this day in Japan, as well as Svilen from Bulgaria. And these were just the first of some amazing international friends I found. Together, we explored the main centre of Yokohama, including the pokemon center! This was my first of many trips to this and other pokemon centers whilst I was in Japan, but this was the time that I got my AMAZING phone case! I also found that my accommodation was near a 2 hour McDonalds, which I ended up frequenting...

Day 3 in Japan: Today was the first day of school! We had a placement rest which was difficult and then orientation but that was it for today. After a few of us went to look around some shops and on my way home I may have stopped at mcdonalds... I have a new respect for foreign students, ordering mcdonalds in another language is hard! #japan #travelling #adventure #mcdonalds

A photo posted by Jazz Thornton (@roverandomness) on Jul 7, 2014 at 10:35am PDT

I think the caption for this day pretty much sums it up, the placement test was extremely long though, and some bits were so simple whilst others were complex, there wasn't much of a middle ground.

Days 4 and 5 in Japan: oops I forgot to photo yesterday, sorry! Yesterday was the first Japanese lesson, I think it was too easy for me though! I also had to go doctors yesterday boo! Today however was Mount Fuji, and Fuji-Q highland Theme Park! That roller coaster was crazy! We went on it first :p #japan #travelling #adventure #fujisan

A photo posted by Jazz Thornton (@roverandomness) on Jul 7, 2014 at 7:19am PDT

Day 4, my first Japanese lesson, which I was late too, as I had to go to the doctors first thing that morning. I think I should make my experience of being ill in Japan into its own post as there was a lot going on around it. It was exciting to start my first lessons though although the class was much too easy (though that was improved on in later lessons). Mount Fuji day and Fuji-Q Highland were something else though. I had already been to Mount Fuji before, the first time I'd been to Japan, but that was almost 6 years ago now! This time was just as busy with tourists, school coaches and day trips as I remembered though! It was a shame that it was such a cloudy day, when we arrived at the rest stop we couldn't see any of the peak at all, but there are so many shops and shrines up there that we still had plenty to do, I started off my collection of kit kats that day, with mount Fuji strawberry Cheesecake flavour. There are none left now. Fuji Q was pretty intense, our tickets included 4 free rides on whatever we wanted, I actually only ended up using 3 I think, as my ear infection was so painful I couldn't go on more rollercoasters, but I did make my first stop the "FUJIYAMA, the "KING OF COASTERS," which boasts world-class specs, including a maximum speed of 130 km/h (81 mph), a maximum drop of 70 m (230 ft.), and a maximum height of 79 m (259 ft.)" which was so incredible I could have done it 15 times in a row... There was also EVANGELION WORLD, which I was so excited about! Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of my favourite animes of all time, though I did get majorly freaked out by the giant life-size Unit 01 head going berserk, the gift shop for that was also a thing of beauty!


Theres more to come on my adventures in Japan, I thought separating it out would help with the sheer amount, but the more I think about tit the more I want to share and talk about! It's also maing me incredibly nostalgic, and now all I know is I have to make it back to Japan sometime! 'Til next time~ またね〜

Yokohama City

Aaah! I don't believe it's been two months since my last post! I wasn't supposed to take a break! I actually have a whole bunch of half written draft posts, but todays topic is something I have really wanted to post about for a while anyway, so I thought I might as well.

As I have mentioned before, I plan to go to Japan next summer for a month long summer school, so that I can be certain that I can cope by myself in Japan before I go there for an entire year!

Well, I've known for a while where I shall hopefully be going, and that is Yokohama Design School, as they are also a language school! And so in anticipation (which is funny really as I haven't even got a place yet or anything) I have been conducting research about Yokohama and the surrounding areas. The city itself lies on Tokyo Bay, almost directly south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu. It was Japan's original international port and I think it is the perfect place for me as I have always grow up and lived by the sea. It is an hour and 20 minutes away from the centre of Tokyo, and has a beautiful big wheel and lighthouse, I kind of want to compare it to Plymouth but I know it is much bigger!

I want to make a much more informative post on Yokohama and the design school at some point, but for now this is it!

Til next time! (Which hopefully won't be so long this time!)