A day of new experiences

Insect count: 1 small flying bug that scared the crap out of me and 1 GIANT moth

T5B: 1) We made it onto all our trains! 2) We got to travel together (sit together). 3) All the Japanese people but one we approached today were really helpful. 4) I got to go to an onsen for the first time! 5) We saw hanabi! (Fireworks)

So, my first new experience of the day: I awoke to the sound of whispering. Weird. Luckily I didn't have a heart attack (I remembered Tara and Abbey were at my place). The girls who had said the night before that they wanted to put off going to Hokkaido (they were EXHAUSTED, chafing, and frankly Tokyo was not what they expected ~ it let them down) felt A LOT better after a LONG night's sleep and wanted to go today. ASAP in fact. So I packed a bag and waited for them. LOL They finally got everything and off we went.

It was already roasting outside and my period makes me roasting inside so I was pretty uncomfortable. We stopped by the bank (so I could get some money) and then we went by Mister Donut so the girls could try them. :) After that we stopped by Plaza Odette (spontaneous decision on my part) and got information from them, in English, about Hiraizumi. We asked about Hokkaido but since it's not in Iwate they didn't have anything. The very sweet girl printed out a list of sites for us though... in Japanese. Still, we really appreciated it. Then off we went to the station. I had found out about a special train pass that was really cheap for residents (since I couldn't have the same unlimited pass they were able to buy since I'm, as stated, a resident) and the girls kindly purchased that for me. (I told them before they came that my summer spending money wouldn't even cover the train so I was ok staying home. They asked me if I'd rather go to Tokyo or Hokkaido and I chose Hokkaido (since I'll fly out of Tokyo eventually I'll get to see it again). Once we bought it, we found out I couldn't take ANY of the 3 trains we needed to take to get to Hokkaido. *FACEPALM* Luckily the girl refunded it right away and Tara and Abbey got the regular passes for me. I offered to go back, but they said it was fine (and I'm SO SO SO grateful that I got to go with them). Then we asked for reserved seats so we could sit together. This sweet girl helped us FOREVER as she didn't speak much English and we don't speak much Japanese. I'm so glad she stuck with us for so long. And I apologized to the other people in line behind us.

Then we had about an hour to kill so we spent 40 minutes sitting and chatting and then went to find our train. We thought we had found the right platform (I asked a guy where to go and he directed us upstairs). I asked a guy waiting for the shinkanzen and he informed me we were waiting in the wrong place (well, we were waiting at the wrong place for the car we were supposed to be in). Not only that ~ as we were getting seated, he showed up (he made sure we had found out places). What a sweetheart! Then I met the one mean Japanese person we saw today. He was a ticketing agent and he FREAKED out at me. Sheesh. I didn't know what he was telling me to do, so he resorts to yelling it at me. DUDE! The problem isn't with my hearing, it's with the language barrier. I really don't care for people yelling at me. At all. I wanted to cry. He yanked my tickets out of my hand and then shoved them back at me and motioned me to put ALL of them in the machine. Then when they all came back out, he took one away and then AGAIN shoved the others back at me. ARGH! Then a sweet old man who had seen the whole exchange said to me, "Only one train to Hakodate. Go to one." "Platform one? Densha one?" "Train one." Since we were running behind (we only had ten minutes to change trains) I thanked him and hurried after the girls. We made that train. YAY! We were chatting and we had the fun experience of going under the ocean! Unfortunately it's a dark tunnel, but it was still cool to know we were traveling underwater in a train. We had the same experience with a few minutes to switch trains. When we got on the train from Hakodate to Touya major exhaustion hit me. I could barely sit up. I slumped over my purse and slept for ten minutes. Then I woke up with a start ~ a man came around checking tickets and we weren't in the right train car. So though we had been told there was no reserved seating, there was and we had to move trains. It was really rough because the train was bouncing around so much. But we eventually made it, my phone had died (grrr), and we were kind of done with traveling and being on trains. Well, I don't know about them but I was hot and crampy and just was DONE. Tara plugged my phone into Abbey's laptop because we needed to look up information about buses. So once that was back online, we looked up information and found out which bus to take.

I think we were all really glad to get off the train. It also arrived about an hour later than we expected. Still, at least we knew which bus to take. On the bus, I felt a tickling on my arm. Every other time I've felt something I've panicked thinking it was a bug and found out it was a hair. So this time I LITERALLY suppressed the panic to turn and see it WAS a bug! It was a smallish (bigger than what I see in my apartment) flying bug but it really scared me. I frantically waved my arm around to get it off (that didn't work) and just used my panic to flick it (something I'm usually too afraid to do) and then it was gone! Whew. So anyway, the driver was very kind and made sure we got off on the right spot. He also directed us to the hotel. We started walking the long way and he stopped the bus and motioned us over and told us a shortcut. Japanese people are so great!

The people at the counter at the hotel were super nice and super cute. :) We got our room (which is a traditional Japanese room with the tatami :D) and they hadn't had time to set up the beds. So the little Japanese guy was setting up the futons and I helped him. He kept saying, "Thank you very much." I hope I didn't bother him and I wasn't trying to hurry him. I was just taught to help. So I did. :) Then we went out to get food. We had ridden the train through lunch so I was STARVING. We went out to eat since it was the fastest. We paid a little more than we wanted, and for me it was the one place I was going to eat in in Touya. We found out they have fireworks every night here (YAHOO) but we missed most of them tonight because we were waiting for our food. (I asked for some hot sauce and put a ton on my food. It's the first place that I feel the food didn't justify the price. It was ok.) In any case, after we finished our food the girls went out the front while I went to pay (they had paid me and I paid the whole bill to break a large note) but they left the door open. This GIGANTIC moth flew into the restaurant! As I exited I chided them, "You guys! You can't leave the door open! A giant moth got inside!" They felt badly and off we went to catch the end of the fireworks.

We saw the end (they were sweet) and we saw a cat. The girls were SO excited (they have cats at home) and as I was looking for my phone ~ since this cat had a little Hitler 'stache, the cat comes over to me and starts rubbing itself all over me. Cats LOVE me. They somehow know I'm allergic and MUST touch me. *rolls her eyes* Get a life kitty! I had left my phone in our room so I didn't get a picture. :( The girls got one though. :) We stopped at a Conbini (convenience store) on the way home and I bought food for tomorrow so I wouldn't have to eat out. Plus there's a little fridge in our room.

After that we came back to the hotel and tried the onsen! LOL Well, first I found out that our little fridge was filled with beer. Seriously!? I'm sure it's awesome for most other tourists but for us it was  a MAJOR waste of fridge space. We took some of the beer out to put our things in there. Hopefully they don't get mad about that. In any case... onsen!

It was actually really fun. I said to them, let's just all agree to look at each other in the face and go from there. So we did and off we went. The water (natural hot springs) was REALLY hot. I finally had to get out because it felt like I was on fire. I waited for the other two girls but they were taking too long so I went back upstairs. It was funny though, to me, because as I was drying and getting my robe back on, two Japanese women were chatting and hanging out in the nude. No biggie for them. It was pretty cool. And what I thought might be mortifying was actually really an empowering experience. I felt really beautiful and not shy or hesitant about my body at all. :) So all in all it was a fabulous experience. :) I think we'll do it again tomorrow night (the onsen is in the basement of our hotel ~ and good thing Ann knows the kanji for male and female as the male onsen was closer than the female one! LOL). I came back to the room earlier than they did to write this and put my hair in socks (it's half up atm). They are saying they want to shower everyday here. Well, here where I am not paying the water bill doesn't worry me. I DO worry about my apartment though. 4 girls and if they 3 of them shower everyday... my water bill is going to break the bank. :/ I'm trying not to worry TOO much. *sigh* In any case, hopefully it will be ok. Hopefully I don't spend all my summer money and can use the leftovers from that to pay my bills since they paid for my train ticket(s ~ when we go back). In any case, I feel super clean and just peaceful. I'm also looking forward to tomorrow here as the weather forecast says it will be 5° cooler than Morioka. YAY! Thank goodness. I can't say it enough: I'm grateful my period came now while we're in the North where it's cooler. :) The only problem it really poses is the apathy. I feel like, "I'll just stay in the hotel. Daijobu." But I'll make myself go out tomorrow and I will have fun. :) Love you! XOXO, A

In the Shin-Aomori train station

looking out over Aomori Bay

On the way to Hakodate ~ the fog was so cool!

Tara and the ocean :D

better view of the ocean

me after onsen time - I'm all red because of the heat ~ it was really awesome though! For those of you who don't know, onsens are the traditional Japanese bath houses. You must go naked and most of them are separated by male and female. Most of them are hot springs - and they have very specific rules. I'll take a picture of the rules tomorrow. Be forewarned, there are cartoon bums! LOL