June 26, 2010

Today was amazing! So the first group of us left around nine this morning to head to Kamakura, which is where the big Buddha is located! It was super awesome! Although it took like forever on the train to get there. Later on in the day our first group of people who left found out from the other half that left later that we got off one station too early, and that’s why our walk to the Buddha took like half an hour. That walk was not fun, but the rest of it was amazing! Although the weather today was absolutely awful! It was kind of raining, but kind of not and really humid. So my hair that looked super awesome for the first little while of the trip looked like a giant kind of curly frizz ball by the time we actually got to the Buddha. Fail. One thing that will be nice about being done with Japan eventually will be an end to this awful humidity. The Buddha was like the biggest thing I’ve ever seen! So massive! It was awesome going to it also, because all the Camp Adventure people from every base in Japan came together to take a really really huge Japan Camp Adventure group photo. So, I got to see all the people I trained with from WSU who were placed at different sites in Japan. It was really cool. We took a WSU group picture in front of the giant Buddah. Cool cool. Although we were all girls, surprise. It was really cool that we got to actually go inside the Buddha also. It was super hot inside of it though. At one shop right near the big Buddah I finally found postcards! I have been looking for them everywhere for like ever, but they were always too expensive or just lame and so I hadn’t gotten any yet. Who would have thought that postcards would be so hard to come by. Well anyways, I finally found them so I will be able to write those out and send them to people! I’m glad that on our base we are able to send letters through US mail, since it’s a US base. It makes getting and sending letter way easier. After we went to that a few of us traveled about ten minutes to Hasadera, which was another temple. Probably the second most popular after the big Buddha. Woot. This one was really cool. They wouldn’t let us take pictures inside this actual temple, but it had one of the biggest statues of Buddha I’ve ever seen. It was all gold, and people were lighting candles and praying there. We had to wait about an hour until it was our turn to walk through the hydrangea garden, so while we were waiting for that we ate at the restaurant next to the temple. It was so interesting. When we went in there to eat, you didn’t order at the table. We put our orders in by pressing a button on this vending machine looking thing and then put our money into it and got a receipt. Couldn’t believe it. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I ate the nastiest maybe thing ever. It was like rice balls or something. It was five puffy rice balls that were cold with teriyaki sauce all over them. The texture was probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced. Kind of gooey, but sticky. I don’t know. The first one was ok, but by the fourth on the stick I couldn’t eat anymore. The hydrangea garden was amazing! We walked up, and got to see the thousands and thousands of flowers of all different colors and sizes. It was amazing. Then we went to the cave they had at the temple. You could go in and get little Buddhas to write things on and leave it there. All the walls were lines with tons of those little things. The roof of the cave was really short. Randi and Julie were short so they were able to stand up, but I had to bend over to fit through most definitely. We also saw another smaller temple and walked around, but the first two things were the most amazing. Then we went to the 100 yen shop and took the train back to base. On the way home, a super attractive asian guy sat next to me! I was super excited. But he fell asleep on me. Like literally started to doze off and landed on my shoulder for almost the entire train ride until we had to switch trains near the end. Frankie and the others took pictures of me with him like putting my arm around him, pretending to kiss his head, laying my head on his etc. Ha ha ha. It was sooooo hilarious. We were all dying, because the guy was totally konked out and not even aware that he was totally all up in my space. It’s a good thing I didn’t mind at all because he was so attractive ;). When we got back to base, we got pizza and I had ice cream. That was the first full on American meal I’ve had since I’ve gotten here. I think it was much needed. I love trying new Japanese foods and such, but sometimes you just need a greasy ol’ American pizza. The ice cream was awesome too. Only like a dollar fifty on base for two huge scoops. I love buying things on base! Now we’re watching Now and Then. I’ve never seen it, but Frankie and Lauren swear it’s the best movie ever, so we’ll see. Lol. Til tomorrow! Going to be off to explore more of Tokyo.