出発！！

Tomorrow at 10pm our Shinkansen leaves headed to Kyoto!

Yesterday I met Vaso, Steve, and Mike for lunch. We went to some ramen place that was really good but a tad on the expensive side. I covered Mike and Steve's meal because I owed them money >_< Afterwards we went to the travel center to figure out what kind of costs we were looking at to travel. I asked about the Seishun 18 ticket and found out that it cannot be upgraded to Shinkansen travel. The normal local train pass however can be upgraded. It looks like that is what we will go with. Also, just out of curiosity, Steve asked how much it was to travel by plane from Fukuoka back to Tokyo. Turns out that a ticket only costs the equivalent of $130 compared to the Shinkansen cast of $250++! Looks like we will be doing that.

Before buying tickets Vaso needed to call his parents to tell them to put more money in his account because he would be traveling. We went to a convenience store and he bought a phone card. We also got tea because it came with a free phone strap! Vaso called his parents (took forever by the way.) By this time I was supposed to meet a friend an hour ago! Mike and Steve left us to deal with travel ourselves. Vaso and I went back to the travel center only to find that they close at 3pm on Saturday. Guess we will have to take everything into our own hands. At the local computer lab, we went to the website that the travel center uses and booked our plane tickets back to Tokyo once our trip is over. Ironic because we havn't even bought departure tickets yet!

Finally I got away from Vaso and made it back to Baba at 4pm. Junko yelled at me for being 2 hours late (I told her I would meet at 2pm!) We got together and decided our plans for the day. After going over our options, I decided that we should go to Kudanshita to look at the Sakura flowers. We hopped on the Tozai and headed over there. The first thing I noticed was that the station was packed with people. It was moreso than normal because everyone seemed to be going to the same exit. We also went to that exit. As soon as hitting ground level, the Sakura trees appeared. They were large and abundant. It was the first time that I had seen Sakura in those numbers. I saw a few single trees around my neighborhood and Waseda, but there were hundreds of trees all grouped together here. After taking a few pictures we got in line for the walkway. Kudanshita has a large moat, and on both sides of the moat there are tons of Sakura trees lining the walkways. We walked and walked and walked. Junko said that the flowers this year were very "white". They are supposed to be a light pink color. Looking at flowers in the distance, one can see a pink hue, but up close the flowers look very white in the sunlight. It was interesting. The moat also had rowboat rentals for couples to go around the moat. The line was super long so we passed on that one.

Before leaving Kudanshita the sun had set and lights started turning on. The Sakura looked beautiful in the light. Across the street from the viewing was a large gathering area with food and games. We split a potato-butter dish as a snack which turned out just to be a baked potato with tons of butter and mayo on it. It has been a while since I ate that anyways. There was not much more of interest in Kudanshita so we headed to the station

We headed off towards Ueno park to check out the trees there. Ueno park is a hoppin' place during this time of year. People lay out sheets, tarps, or cardboard on the ground for sitting places. They stay all day to look at the Sakura and drink sake. Just by walking down the Sakura lane in Ueno, I could smell the alcohol. It was pretty disgusting. Ueno Sakura viewing was much shorter than Kudanshita for a couple of reasons. There were tons of people and most of the trees were not lit up by lights. Around this time I was getting hungry again so I took Junko to the nearby rotating sushi restaurant. It was the same one that Shoko introduced me too my first time in Ueno. Suprisingly, she ate more than I did, if only one plate. At this, we headed back to the station to go home. It was a fun day. She told me not to be late again >_<

Today I met with Vaso to finalize our plans and buy tickets. We bought a 7 day local train ticket from Tokyo to Hakata, then a Shinkansen ticket from Tokyo to Kyoto. We will probably stay a couple days in Kyoto as Vaso and I both have friends there. His friend is providing us with a free place to stay, and my friend (Ayane-chan) is going to introduce us to Kyoto (via car!!!) The local train pass was only about $100 and the shinkansen upgrade was another $40. We ran some various errands around Baba and Shinjuku. Vaso picked up a duffle bag for the trip. We screwed around till 6pm when we could get the money back for our teiki from Don. Afterwards we hit up this English book store called the Blue Pelican. I found the Heisig kanji flashcards for $18! They are normally $70. I was originally going to make my own, but 2000 blank flashcards are more expensive than $18! Kanji numbers 1000-1100 are missing, but I think I can deal with that. I also picked up a guide for the level 2 Japanese Proficiency Test. It should prove useful this semester. I should check out that store more often. They have a bunch of Japanese material for cheap.

Well I gotta get packing for tomorrow! Once again I will not have internet until I get back on the 8th. If anything important comes up, give me an email on my phone!