Kyoto!

I don't even know where to start. This will be a long post, just warning you. On Friday we met in front of school and they assigned us in groups to local students who would serve as our tour guides to Kyoto. It was me, this girl Ashley from Australia, dude Owen from Indiana and Tarique from Montreal. Then we had 6 Japanese students as our tour guides. Japanese people are so amazing. They are so polite, sincere, genuine and accommodating. They go out of their way to make sure you are happy and comfortable. It's so weird to get use to coming from the rude ass United States.

 It kind of makes me feel embarrassed about our country. Don't get me wrong, there are some great things about America but seeing how people treat other people here, well it makes us look bad. I feel like when some people in the States encounter a foreigner, whether they speak english or not, we're kind of rude to them and tend to have the attitude, "learn the language or don't come here." I personally have never felt this but I have encountered many who have. It's sad because people in general are curious creatures, which is we travel to other countries, so what if we don't speak the native language? As hosts we should be more helpful and polite. It definitely made me think a lot about how I treat people that might not be from the States. 

Anyways, we walked to the train station and they showed us how to use the system, which I was relieved because I haven't really been out of my dorm and school much yet so I was excited to see how to get the hell out of here when deemed necessary. Pretty easy, fairly cheap too. A few of the Japanese girls really took to me and were asking me a million questions about myself and about my life in America. Most of the Japanese students at my school are english majors but still have a hard time speaking it so they spoke in broken english a lot and I spoke in butchered Japanese seeing that I don't know a lick of the language. It was fun and was the first time I was around Japanese students cos up to this point I have only been around the international students. 

Once we arrived to Kyoto we took a bus to the Kiyomizu Temple. Kyoto is the old capital of Japan and was spared during WWII so I was glad to see a lot of old architecture still standing. The temple was breathtaking. We walked around for hours and it was so helpful to have awesome tour guides. Speaking of awesome, Aki and I were walking around the temple and I pointed to something and said that it was awesome. She stopped and with a confused look and with the cutest broken english ever said, "ahhesome?" I asked if she knew that they meant she shook her head no. So I said, "You know what excited means?" She shook her head yes. "Well, when you get excited about something or someone and it makes you happy, you can say that it is awesome!" She got real happy and said she would be using that often and then I told her that it was like a slang word in America and I thought the girl was going to pee her pants with excitement. Her face lit up and she screamed "slang!" and called for the other girls to come over and have me explain it to them and then they all got excited. It was quite the scene. 

I was told that Japanese students love talking to the international students for many reasons but one of them being to learn slang, they love it. Glad I could help. 

Meanwhile, I knew that my friends from Portland, Michael and Colby, were in Kyoto and I was trying my hardest to meet up with them after the tour. Aki and her friend from Kyoto helped me by letting me use their cell phone to call the friend Michael and Colby were staying with, Tomo, who kind of speaks english. One of the girls called him and they figured out a place for me to meet up with them. Then they all rode the bus with me to the meeting spot to make sure I found them safely. I saw Michael and Colby across the street and ran to meet the for hugs. I can't tell you what it felt like to see such good friends in a foreign city so far away from home. I felt all the anxiety and uncertainty wither away the moment I spotted them. What are the chances of seeing your friends on the side of the world? It was amazing. 

I met their friend Tomo and he was awesome. We then walked to Tomo's friends Scotch's restaurant where he was going to make us dinner. We walked in and they escorted us back to this private room that had one of those private Japanese looking doors. We sat on mats around this low to the ground table. There was already a massive bottle of Sake waiting for us in the table. There were no menus and then a knock came at the door and it was our first round of food. The restaurant was owned by Scotch's family so all of them were there serving and making our food. I had some Ahi tuna and tried squid, it was so good. Then we had some soup with some potato thingy, some delicious white fish, some veggies and some awesome tasting broth. Then came this bowl filled with some type of fish that looked gross but was so sweet and good. Then came some egg dish that I can't really describe but it was good. After that a piece of sesame tofu and a piece of shrimp that was amazing, I usually don't like shrimp but I could have eaten 100 of these. 

Lastly came the huge bowl of soup that sits in the middle of the table and everyone just grabs what they want out of it and outs it in their own bowls which are filled with soy sauce and this lemon sauce. The soup is boiling and always has different ingredients. In ours was the best tofu I ever had, the most delicious Japanese veggies I ever had and lastly...Blowfish!!!! yep, I freaking had blowfish. For those of you that don't understand why I am freaking out about this, let me explain. Blowfish is a luxury dish for it is very expensive. It also has to prepared by a Chef who is licensed to do so. You have to train for 2 years to even get a license. It's a dangerous delicacy and if it's not prepared correctly, it can kill you. I guess only a certain part of is edible so when preparing it they have to make sure to cut away from the poison. Crazy! This meal was the best meal I ever had in my life. It should been well over a 100 bucks but Scotch didn't charge us so Tomo told us to give him 1500 yen, which is about 15 dollars. I was blown away. 

We took our bottle of Sake to go and Scotch and Tomo had to meet up with Tomo's girlfriend, whose name I can't pronounce let alone write, they were having band practice. In Japan, bands practice in studios rather than in house because Japanese houses are to small and poorly insulated so the noise would travel right to the neighbors. The studios provide all the amps, drums, mics and cords, you just bring your instruments. Pretty cool. The name of their band is called Beerwolf, like Beowolf but not, clever I thought. They were awesome. Mike and Colby played a couple of songs and Beerwolf was so excited for them to play music. We drank the sake and a lot of beer and then headed to this Italian style restaurant to drink wine. 

This place was nuts, the wine bottles were bigger than the sake we had earlier. After we polished off that one, we ordered another. By this time I would say we were all drunk. Tomo's girlfriend kept ordering food and I tried some pizza and it was so good! We stayed there having so much fun with each other, new and old friends crossing language and culture barriers all in the name of fun. It was so nice to look over and see Michael and Colby. This trip helped me in so many ways. I was able to let loose finally, interact with some locals, meet some new friends, eat amazing food, drink awesome drinks, see how the trains work and see more of Japan. I couldn't have asked for a better night. It made me feel so much better about being here all alone and gave me some hope that I am going to make it just fine. Speaking of hope, the cigarettes Mike was smoking all night were called hope, I don't smoke but I needed some hope, so I had one.