Totally Tokyo

Road Trips (Japanese Style)

Well, I have discovered that I need/should update this blog every day because every day I find myself in a new amazing adventure.

On Monday night I would myself with a few friends from the Sakura House at the neighborhood bar. As I mentioned before, the bar is very small, serves food, has about five barstools, and the first time we went to the bar it was just our small group there. But Monday night we shared the small space of the bar with locals of Ontakesan. We found out through out the night and with our attempt to speak japanese, with five minute pauses in between se I can try to look it up in my handy dandy phrase book, that they were all some how related or just good friends. By the end of the night we were dancing to Beyonce, singing YATTA when ever we didn't know how to say something in Japanese. We had new friends named Motto. Tasoi, Kako and Maki, and I had an invititation for 6 am Tuesday to go surfboarding on the coast of Japan in a city called Chiba.
I didn't know how this car ride was going to be considering I do not know Japanese, and only Kako could really speak English, but when would I ever have a chance to surf with a Japanese family that annually flies to Hawaii to go surfing, and they run a bar that has a Hawaii surf theme. I would not ever know how to get to the coast on my own, nor would i probably find nicer people to be my hosts. So 6 AM Tuesday, I meet with them infront of the bar, they live upstairs, hop into a mini van that had a GPS tracking system (which seems to be a requirment for a Japanese driver considering the lack of street signs, an no design to the addresses) and 4 surfboards strapped on. We picked up on of their cousins, Mami, who through in a couple boogie boards, and we started our way out of Tokyo. We passed Fuji television headquarters (which is probably the craziest building I have ever seen, squares are missing from it, and there is a giant circle structure in the middle of it, I don't know how to describe it, I recommend you "google" it") and we passed Tokyo Disney land and Sea, the coolest Disney Castle ever (Do you see the theme of japan and things being cool? haha). After a 2 1/2 hour car ride (that was filled with conversation and explaination of everything from culture to language) we went to an all day breakfast dinner and i have PANCAKES! They were fabulous. Kako treated me because she said that I was her new daughter (She as well as the others are in their 30s and 40s). I ahd pictures in my bag that Thom printed me and from home. I told them stories from my life. They shared stories and pictures from their cell phones of their loved ones. We made it to Chiba after 3 hours, a seashell-less beach where the water is sooooo warm and clean, no seaweed of jelly fish, it was such a relaxing beach and beautiful. they gave me surf gear to wear and i headed out to the ocean with a boogie board. After they ahd been surfing and I had been boogie boarding, Tasio came to me and gave me his surfboard. With out much english, he taught me what i needed to do. When a wave came he pushed me with it and i jumped up and surfed in the first wave! when I caught the wave and looked back, they were all singing YATA and dancing! They kept on saying i was a "real surfer." it was a dream come true! After a day of sufing, we went to a Raman resturant (not like the raman at home) and they dropped me off at Sakura. It was probably the ebst day I have every had that wasn't spent with loved ones. Surreal!

Yesterday I dropped them off a present at the bar for the trip, the surfing lesson and alll the meals. The put my attempt to write a haragana thank you note on the wal and hung up my framed picture of us. I was so honored! Tasoi called me his best friend and Kako still calls me her daughter.

After that, a few off us took a cab ride up to Shibuya, and meet 3 japanese music industry people. The guy jsut finished interviewing Ben harper and the girl does promotions for virgin record and the other girl works for a music magazine. I swear, Tokyo is the nicest city in the world. I have had an amazing time meeting so many people.

Now tonight Temple is hosting a Sake testing party, you gotta love this school.

There will be pictures to come, I promise.


From the future,

Stephanie

posted by Stephy-ru @ Friday, September 01, 2006