During this day so much happened that it is impossible to remember every moment. I will give some highlights of this day.
The day started at 04:40 when a group of six people left for the famous fish market. After reaching the metro station of the fish market a sign told us the fish market was closed because of National Foundation Day, the day where the foundation of Japan and the accession of the first emperor is celebrated. Because we were already awake and there we decided to visit the fish market anyway. Although the fish market was almost devoid of people all lights were on. We walked through the empty alleys which gave a very surreal feeling.
Around 09:00 the rest of the group joined us to visit the Meji Jingu park. There we went to the Meji shrine to have a look around and witness a ceremony. There we also hang a wish which we wrote on a wooden board. In this wish we were grateful for a great trip and wished that our trip would have a prosperous continuation.
Furthermore the Meji Shrine Inner Gardens were visited. It was a shame we visited this garden during the winter. In this garden there is a field of iris flowers but because of the winter nothing was flowering. Even without this it could be noted that the garden must be beautiful during every other season.
To finish the day Akihabara, famous for its electronics markets, was visited. Lights and sounds are fired at you from every direction. The most noticeable visit in Akihabara was a maid cafe. In such a cafe the waiters are dressed as, like you would guess, maids, to make the customers at ease. In this cafe we ordered burgers made into teddy bear heads, a sleeping bear of rice under a blanket of omelet and ice cream in the form of, again, a bear. Our dinner was eaten under the entertainment of a maid dancing wildly and a ritual to serve a cocktail. These shows and the total experience made more than up for the expensive meal.
By: Erik de Wit
Monday morning we went to the Dutch embassy in Japan. In order to be there in time we left our hostel a bit early. The subway system didn't pose much trouble. We all got into the metro in one go, however we did have to apply some serious compression techniques(SakuraZensen.zip).
The embassy is situated at the top of a hill in a nice neighborhood close to the Tokyo Tower. Apparently it used to be possible to see the harbor from there. This is no longer the case due to the expansion of the city. At the embassy we got a presentation about Japan, the business and innovation. One of the great tips we got was, not just to be amused by how different things are in Japan, but to figure out why they are different.
The next stop on the tour was Jamstec. To get there we used the bus. However finding the right bus stop was a bit of a problem at first. After some running about we managed to find the right one and drive towards our destination.
Jamstec does marine research and we got presentations about Jamstec in general, different measurement instruments, machines and robots in the sea. Two researchers presented and also gave us a first taste of the Japanese English. Both were understandable and resided to join us on the tour of the facilities. It was really nice to walk over the docs, learn about submarines and just look around. Some of the things we saw were an autonomous robot submarine, sensors looking like torpedo's and a pressure test facility. The next day a small group of students would get up at 4 o'clock to go to the fish market so I went to bed early.
By: Rowan de Vries
It is 8:20 AM, although it is the land of the rising sun it has let us down for now...
After the night passed and the alarm clocks were thrown out the window it was time to start this Sunday at 6:45 AM. After some typical wake-up routines people collected in front of the hostel, some with alcohol vapor hanging around others just tired our day responsible even both. We already knew it would give a lot of snow but it was maybe even worse than most thought. Slipping and skating our way to the metro station where we arrived unharmed leaving a trail of alcohol vapor and noise. People count: 23.
With our Pasmos' (Metro pas) in hand we checked in and made our way to the platform, at least that was the plan until someone noticed he forgot his Japan Rail pass. Half a minute later we were on the metro leaving 4 persons behind who would pick up their passes from the hotel. A minor setback of course, but we wouldn't let that ruin going to Nikko. People count: 19. After surviving the subway we arrived at the train station which meant we would get our first taste of the Shinkansen. All of a sudden someone found out that he also forgot his rail pas, he ran off into the unknown. Still, this was not going to stop us from getting into the Shinkansen and get on our way to Nikko. We arrived at the platform ahead of time. People count: 18.
Of course this was not all that went wrong. The land of the rising sun has let us down, it was 8:20 AM we should have got on the Shinkansen at 8:14 AM. What had happened? We thought the average delay was 12 seconds for the Japanese trains (they don't even have space on the announcements boards for delay), apparently the railroads are only working spotless if there is no snow, which means its hardly snowing in Japan. So now after about 20 minutes we got on the Shinkansen, 5 people still missing, and time to go as fast as the speed of light (almost). After thundering at high speed we had to change to one more train that would bring us to Nikko. People count still: 18.
At that station of Nikko, we started throwing snowballs at each other while Rowan tried to get some money from an ATM, which didn't happen. Probably the locals weren't too happy with us throwing all the snow back on the pave they just cleaned the morning. We headed up the hill further and got to an ATM, everybody got his share of the bounty and it was time to tackle the mountain (temple).
We split up in random groups, my group decided to get something to eat before getting to the temples. We got into a small restaurant and got some pretty nice noodles and green tea. After replenishing our energy it was time to head up and go see some Japanese culture. We first got to a 'temporary' shrine (more than 500 years old), first thing noticed that there were a lot of charms one could buy. The second part we visited was the main temple, where we found a pleasant surprise, the lost soles had arrived more alive than ever. The temple was massive and impressive, everything was nicely decorated with gold and all sorts of animals were engraved in the wood of the buildings. Bit of a shame it was cloudy and we tried to warm our bodies in the little sun we got, we weren't really keen on taking of our shoes (in japan you take of your shoes at a lot of places). So because of that it was difficult to find the right mindset for entering the temple and shrines, but it was totally worth the cold toes and see all the beautiful shrines. People count: 23!
After the temple we had a cup of coffee and a piece of cake (how dutch of us). We headed down the hill back to the train station, it was decided to go back to Tokyo earlier than planned before. In the process we then again lost three, they didn't get the information about leaving Nikko a bit earlier and instead tried out some snow shoes of random locals. People count: 20.
Everything got dark and gloomy sitting in the Shinkansen towards Tokyo, they turned up the heat pretty well, making the trip sleepy, silent and very short. Back in Tokyo we got to an Indian restaurant, which was quit a weird experience (even in Japanese the Indian have that typical Indian accent). Back at the hostel we got another beer and sat in the chill room, where after a while three people we didn't see in a while popped around the corner. In the end we all got back in one piece, we'll see if the next day we will get the same twisted people counts during the day. Lets end the day with the final people count and a cheers! People count: 23!
By: Eelco Bussink
After a tiring flight we have finally arrived at Narita airport. Except for the first shock that we were missing the suitcase of Hugo, the check-in was uneventfully.
After declaring nothing special at customs, we set up our base outside the arrival gate and set out to gather:
- Japanese rail passes,
- Pasmo's (Japanese ov-card),
- a mobile internet dongle,
- Japanese "pingels".
After some confusion at the ATM machine, we were largely successfully. The route to the metro station took some work to find, but Jens took charge and guided us.
It took quite a long time to register all rail passes and to reserve our train seats. During this delay we had time to:
- install whatsapp,
- download Japanese,
- get coffee*,
- panic about the ov-cards,
- panic about maps,
- take pictures,
- write stuff,
- annoy the locals.
*(side note) apparently you can get a Starbucks coffee here for 300 to 400 pingels. The coins are also very thin and feel like money.
After we finished all this we had to hand in the ov-cards again because they didn't contain enough money, or not, I was very confused by like 7 pieces of paper. But we could check into the metro so it turned out fine.
We took the Keisen-line to Yenisei and got a pleasant surprise. When we got out of a tunnel we saw that it was snowing. We weren't to concerned but when we went into Tokyo we were proven wrong.
Snow everywhere, a few centimeter per hour. So we could walk to a snowy Tokyo and after we left the hostel to get lunch we travelled in small groups. We ended up in a small establishment where the owner could not speak English but she had an English translation of the card, so we managed. It was a good opportunity to practice our "arigato" and "sayounara".
We also tried to buy a box with four six-packs of beer in a supermarket after lunch, but the lady behind the register accidentally charge an us for four of the boxes. We weren't sure of this and when we checked and tried to ask, the lady did no speak English. Luckily for us we could enlist the help of a local person who did and eventually we sorted it out.
After our lunch we returned to the hostel to determine who slept where. I ended up in the 10 men room, but at least it is with only members of the studytour. We could stash our luggage and relax in the lounge and kitchen/dining room of the hostel for a bit. After everyone was settled in, which took quite some time, it was already time to leave for dinner.
So we left the hostel in groups of five to look for places to eat. Our group ended up at a BBQ place. Where there was a grill in the center of the table which we could use to grill meat. It was a very pleasant meal and surprisingly inexpensive. I had been led to believe meat was expensive, but it cost us only 10 k pingels for five people, which is about 14 Euro per person.
After dinner we braved the streets of Tokyo once more. It was snowing more and more. We couldn't even see our own tracks from before dinner. We went looking for breakfast. As we would need to leave early tomorrow. And we were quite succesful. We bought "bento" boxes. A sort of plastic plate with a large meal in it which costs only 250 yen. We stored them in the fridge of our hostel to nuke tomorrow morning.
We just learned that some buses are not going and even train might be off, due to the snow. We will see if we need to change our plans for tomorrow, but the snows should blow over and we can always switch some days around.
Even some of the night time activities were cancelled, the pub crawl we wanted to join for example. Luckily for us the hostel has a lounge. And the bar man had stocked up on sake. Which could be served hot, to counter the cold outside. So while some of of the others were brave enough to go through the snow to look for other nice places, we spend our evening drinking warm drinks and socializing with the other hostel guests.
Anyway it's time for bed now. We will see what tomorrow brings.
By: Tim Broenink
Today was, for most of us, the very boring beginning of an exciting adventure. Since our flight was planned around 9:50 AM, we had to wake up very early. Some people tried to sleep for a couple of hours, others went to bed very early and Erik prepared himselve by being completely wasted and staying all night awake. Some where later out of bed than others. Eelco, for example, was still sleeping when the taxi arrived on the campus and had to be waked by a telephone call. But he managed to arrive in five minutes, so let's give him some respect for that...
So, not much sleep, the weather was very bad and the train had delay. Nevertheless the journey became better by the minute. For example, there was a very nice surprise when we arrived in Zürich. Because of the 150 years of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Japan, this flight was seen as a memorable flight and all passengers were invited for some nice Japanese/Swiss snacks and drinks. And also a nice group picture was made with the pilots.
The rest of the day was very straight-forward: we took the plane to Tokio and arrived there in time. The flight itself did not provide very exciting news, nevertheless, it brang us to a place that will give us enough opportunities to experience great stories!
By: Dennis Alveringh
All preparations are in place for an awesome trip to Japan. In just a few more days we will depart and leave our family and friends behind. However, we will stay in touch by keeping a day to day journal on our website right here. Yesterday we had an awesome evening saying everyone farewell, since they have to miss us for the upcoming three weeks. During the goodbye drinks we distributed our USE goodiebag which included among other things the travel guide we will be using intesively. We hope you enjoy reading our journals about our experiences in Japan.
By: Ray Tanuhardja
