Japan Day 11 / saigo / sigh / Gifu!
First off I will state that I'm falling into my "leaving Japan" depression already. I expect it to hit full force about 4 hours into my plane flight home and I'll be a wreck of tears. Of course, Nykkel is flying home two days after me so I'll be a wreck all by myself. Whee.
But anyway, since I came here to check email to make sure I had a ride home from the airport tomorrow (it seems I do! thanks![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
damienroc!) I might as well write about what we did today.
Well. We got up and went to the Tokyo station again, to get on a shinkansen again, on the Tokaido line again, but this time actually getting off at Nagoya. We stopped by the bakery in the Tokyo station again with the fabulous mini-taiyaki and the chocolate stars and I also got a chocolate eclair as well. So to put it mildly, I was pretty stuffed. Mm. I read through the Catan manga on the train. It's so crazy cute.
We got to Nagoya at 12:04 and I realized I had totally forgotten where Jeff (the other Jeff, akathe2belo, who has posted a few pictures of today, eep) had said to meet us, so I called his cellphone... turns out he had just arrived and was in a turnaround about 100m from where we were standing. Oops. So, we went outside, found him and his big green station wagon, and he drove us to Gifu, which is where he actually lives, which is like an hour from Nagoya by car (but only 18 mins by train as we found out later). Dude, I think that was the second time I ever rode in a car in Japan, the first time being three years ago when Oren's host family mother drove us all back to the Kanazawa station because we were too late to get a bus or something.
Cars in Japan scare me :) Jeff's car has a cool GPS map thing in it though, which was fun to watch when I was trying not to think about how we were going to get in a horrible accident and die. (Not his fault; the drivers in Nagoya just seem to suck. In addition, I was all confused by the left and right turns and whatnot.) We got to Gifu and stopped at Gifu Park. There was a cable car that went up the mountain to Gifu Castle, much like the inclines in Pittsburgh that go up to Mt. Washington, but unlike those, it cost like Y1050, and we didn't really think it was worth it, so we didn't go up. Maybe next time. Anyway, we wandered around the park and took some pictures and whatnot, which, as I said, Jeff posted some in his entry about today. We stopped by a little yaki-etc-food-shack thing and had okonomiyaki since I was all sad that I hadn't had it this trip. It wasn't like, as good as the stuff we had in Osaka several years ago but it was better than anything I'd get in the states, of course. Yay. And I got to give myself carpal tunnel trying to use chopsticks on it, too.
After that we went to Jeff's house where we were barked and meowed at by several roaming pets. Once the dog stopped barking at us, we went inside and talked for a while. Got to meet Jeff's wife, and parents-in-law, and niece, and I think he had a grandmother around the house too but she was asleep (which I was informed was very fortunate; I haven't really read his journal lately so I don't really know what's going on because I suck). I attempted and partially succeeded in chatting with Jeff's family-in-law in Japanese, although several times I kinda stumbled and had to revert to English. (Nykkel, of course, wouldn't say a word in Japanese despite how well he understands it, and apparently Miyuki, Jeff's wife, wouldn't say a word in English despite how well she understands it. How weird. I guess I just don't care as much whether I sound like a complete idiot.) I talked about my last trips to Japan, and babbled about baseball a lot. They all seemed super-surprised that I like the Nippon Ham Fighters, heh... I tried to explain but I'm pretty sure I totally screwed that part up.
We went on a tour of the house and basically ended up sitting in the computer room chatting for a few hours. They were attempting to make me feel young by pointing out how old they are. I'm not sure it worked. I also tried to explain Puzzle Pirates. I may have partially succeeded. At any rate it was really kind of strange to be halfway around the world in the middle of nowhere at the house of a guy I basically only know through LiveJournal who is pretty cool and was all psyched that we came to visit him even though we're a bunch of dorks. Though I suppose it wasn't any more bizarre than anything else this trip. And it was good to have someone else to visit in Japan.
I got to see about 5 minutes of the Fighters-Hawks game on TV; it was 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth, and it was going into extra innings as we left for dinner. (Ogasawara was up, heh. And as I just found out, the game ended in a 3-3 tie after 12 innings. Doh!) We took several more pictures outside, and then went to some place (Kamon?) and had miso-katsu for dinner. It was pretty good. Apparently miso-stuff is the specialty of the Gifu-Nagoya area. So, whee.
Jeff took us to the Gifu JR station after that, and Nykkel and I caught a train to Nagoya from there, and then got on our shinkansen, and came back here to Tokyo. I normally would take the Marunouchi line back from Tokyo station but I wanted to get on the Yamanote for one last time, so we did that instead. I got pretty sad during that, and wanted to play PNM when I got off. We went to East Ikebukuro where I failed at a few lame UFO catchers and we failed to really play Bemani because Moai was packed. We did play a game of IIDX together at St. Tropez and it all worked out ok, except Nykkel picked some expert course and I failed on the 5th song (Dynamite Rave 7-key. He passed). I guess it was fun though. We came back to this side of the station and I played 2 games of PNM at the game center I don't know the name of that used to have internet terminals. I got 397/3/0, 99400 on Murmur Twins basic, which is a 21-difficulty song, and I took a screenshot. Shame I won't be able to play it again forever and ever and ever. Sigh. Then I came here. Then I will go to the ryokan and pack, or cry, or both, I'm not sure.
So to sum up: Went to Gifu. Saw nothing of Nagoya but train station. Jeff is cool. I am sad.
Tomorrow, I will get up around 9am, will shower and change, will leave my bags at the ryokan because checkout is 11am but my train is at 1pm; will go get lunch somewhere in the neighborhood, will play some PNM most likely, will get on the Narita Express, will get to the airport, will get on a plane around 5pm Monday Japan time... will sit on a plane for 10 hours... will get off the plane around 9:30am Monday Seattle time... the other Jeff will come pick me up from the airport in Seattle... I'll go to my apartment... and collapse and cry. And unpack a little. And maybe sleep. Who knows. Oh, and do my taxes. Ugh.
So, this is probly my last communication from this side of the ocean. I'll see you all on the other side. Goodbye, land of the rising sun. I hope I'll be back soon.
But anyway, since I came here to check email to make sure I had a ride home from the airport tomorrow (it seems I do! thanks
damienroc!) I might as well write about what we did today.Well. We got up and went to the Tokyo station again, to get on a shinkansen again, on the Tokaido line again, but this time actually getting off at Nagoya. We stopped by the bakery in the Tokyo station again with the fabulous mini-taiyaki and the chocolate stars and I also got a chocolate eclair as well. So to put it mildly, I was pretty stuffed. Mm. I read through the Catan manga on the train. It's so crazy cute.
We got to Nagoya at 12:04 and I realized I had totally forgotten where Jeff (the other Jeff, aka
the2belo, who has posted a few pictures of today, eep) had said to meet us, so I called his cellphone... turns out he had just arrived and was in a turnaround about 100m from where we were standing. Oops. So, we went outside, found him and his big green station wagon, and he drove us to Gifu, which is where he actually lives, which is like an hour from Nagoya by car (but only 18 mins by train as we found out later). Dude, I think that was the second time I ever rode in a car in Japan, the first time being three years ago when Oren's host family mother drove us all back to the Kanazawa station because we were too late to get a bus or something. Cars in Japan scare me :) Jeff's car has a cool GPS map thing in it though, which was fun to watch when I was trying not to think about how we were going to get in a horrible accident and die. (Not his fault; the drivers in Nagoya just seem to suck. In addition, I was all confused by the left and right turns and whatnot.) We got to Gifu and stopped at Gifu Park. There was a cable car that went up the mountain to Gifu Castle, much like the inclines in Pittsburgh that go up to Mt. Washington, but unlike those, it cost like Y1050, and we didn't really think it was worth it, so we didn't go up. Maybe next time. Anyway, we wandered around the park and took some pictures and whatnot, which, as I said, Jeff posted some in his entry about today. We stopped by a little yaki-etc-food-shack thing and had okonomiyaki since I was all sad that I hadn't had it this trip. It wasn't like, as good as the stuff we had in Osaka several years ago but it was better than anything I'd get in the states, of course. Yay. And I got to give myself carpal tunnel trying to use chopsticks on it, too.
After that we went to Jeff's house where we were barked and meowed at by several roaming pets. Once the dog stopped barking at us, we went inside and talked for a while. Got to meet Jeff's wife, and parents-in-law, and niece, and I think he had a grandmother around the house too but she was asleep (which I was informed was very fortunate; I haven't really read his journal lately so I don't really know what's going on because I suck). I attempted and partially succeeded in chatting with Jeff's family-in-law in Japanese, although several times I kinda stumbled and had to revert to English. (Nykkel, of course, wouldn't say a word in Japanese despite how well he understands it, and apparently Miyuki, Jeff's wife, wouldn't say a word in English despite how well she understands it. How weird. I guess I just don't care as much whether I sound like a complete idiot.) I talked about my last trips to Japan, and babbled about baseball a lot. They all seemed super-surprised that I like the Nippon Ham Fighters, heh... I tried to explain but I'm pretty sure I totally screwed that part up.
We went on a tour of the house and basically ended up sitting in the computer room chatting for a few hours. They were attempting to make me feel young by pointing out how old they are. I'm not sure it worked. I also tried to explain Puzzle Pirates. I may have partially succeeded. At any rate it was really kind of strange to be halfway around the world in the middle of nowhere at the house of a guy I basically only know through LiveJournal who is pretty cool and was all psyched that we came to visit him even though we're a bunch of dorks. Though I suppose it wasn't any more bizarre than anything else this trip. And it was good to have someone else to visit in Japan.
I got to see about 5 minutes of the Fighters-Hawks game on TV; it was 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth, and it was going into extra innings as we left for dinner. (Ogasawara was up, heh. And as I just found out, the game ended in a 3-3 tie after 12 innings. Doh!) We took several more pictures outside, and then went to some place (Kamon?) and had miso-katsu for dinner. It was pretty good. Apparently miso-stuff is the specialty of the Gifu-Nagoya area. So, whee.
Jeff took us to the Gifu JR station after that, and Nykkel and I caught a train to Nagoya from there, and then got on our shinkansen, and came back here to Tokyo. I normally would take the Marunouchi line back from Tokyo station but I wanted to get on the Yamanote for one last time, so we did that instead. I got pretty sad during that, and wanted to play PNM when I got off. We went to East Ikebukuro where I failed at a few lame UFO catchers and we failed to really play Bemani because Moai was packed. We did play a game of IIDX together at St. Tropez and it all worked out ok, except Nykkel picked some expert course and I failed on the 5th song (Dynamite Rave 7-key. He passed). I guess it was fun though. We came back to this side of the station and I played 2 games of PNM at the game center I don't know the name of that used to have internet terminals. I got 397/3/0, 99400 on Murmur Twins basic, which is a 21-difficulty song, and I took a screenshot. Shame I won't be able to play it again forever and ever and ever. Sigh. Then I came here. Then I will go to the ryokan and pack, or cry, or both, I'm not sure.
So to sum up: Went to Gifu. Saw nothing of Nagoya but train station. Jeff is cool. I am sad.
Tomorrow, I will get up around 9am, will shower and change, will leave my bags at the ryokan because checkout is 11am but my train is at 1pm; will go get lunch somewhere in the neighborhood, will play some PNM most likely, will get on the Narita Express, will get to the airport, will get on a plane around 5pm Monday Japan time... will sit on a plane for 10 hours... will get off the plane around 9:30am Monday Seattle time... the other Jeff will come pick me up from the airport in Seattle... I'll go to my apartment... and collapse and cry. And unpack a little. And maybe sleep. Who knows. Oh, and do my taxes. Ugh.
So, this is probly my last communication from this side of the ocean. I'll see you all on the other side. Goodbye, land of the rising sun. I hope I'll be back soon.
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