Your Japanese word of the week is...

"otsukaresama". While I'm not sure of it's direct translation, the kanji for it is the same as the one for "tired", but in this particular form, it's the equivalent of a day's end "Job well done/good work". It's often heard when someone finishes a day of work or can be said to someone who's just finished something particularly strenuous (we say it lots after training, for example). A more polite version is "otsukaresamadeshita".

People rarely congratulate themselves after a big event, but I'm abstaining from the humble pie for a second to recall just how I managed to get past my 4-day Golden Week which went from an easy "take my time doing stuff" weekend to a non-stop thrash that essentially had me stay out for 4 days straight........

I'd like to note I posted this in parts because I think it makes it slightly easier to read or comment on. If you lose track, just follow the "Golden Week" label on the right to organize them all.

Day 1-

It started on Saturday with a 9am bus ride from Tokyo to Japanese Kelowna (also known as Aizu Wakamatsu in the Fukushima Prefecture). The bus was a real mistake since everyone else was heading out of town for the holidays too, so my 4hr bus ride ended up being 6hrs. Turns out I could've taken the train from my station to Aizu in the same 4hrs and at the same cost. But no matter! Aizu is one of those towns that, because it's sort of out there by itself, ends up being big enough to have some of everything but small enough that there isn't a lot of everything. They do have some rather historic sights though, and Peter took me to see the 3 main ones.

Arriving nice and late, I met with Peter and we headed off to the first sight, which is Iimoriyama Mountain (hill...), where 20 teenage boys of the Byakkotai (White Tiger) group in 1868 all committed seppuku. It was during this time that the city of Aizu was embroiled in a larger civil war and these boys, having mistaken a burning building for that of their castle, committed suicide. That their castle wasn't in fact burning marks the site as one of deep tragedy. Beyond that, one of the boys survived and lived on to tell the tale.

Also at Iimoriyama is a statue of a fascist eagle, the inscription looking distinctly Italian and the Roman numbers dating it at 1928. To the right of it is a much smaller stone slab with a Nazi iron cross on it. Apparently a gift by a German diplomat in recognition of the aforementioned Byakkotai boys, American soldiers eventually noticed the swastika on the stone and had it erased. Regardless, there it stands stoicly brandishing the iron cross.

Down the other side of the mountain is some quaint natural scenery and a house which seems to only contain two ramps arranged in a double helix. Why?? I don't know......... but the rest of the area was quite nice and pleasantly accented with the small streams of water that flow from a nearby cave.




After Iimoriyama, we headed to the Tsuruga Castle, the same one that those unforunate Byakkotai boys thought was burning. Though interior tours were closed for the day, we did walk the grounds and take in the disctintly Japanese approach to gardens- the intriguing mix of making the plants look like they grew there naturally but actively altering them so they don't look natural.

At night, we met one of Peter's friends and headed to a bar/lounge to play some darts (electronic darts, being Japan) and meet his friend's friends. Nearly all of them went home at 11pm............. guess it's not gonna be a long night out...........

Day 2 -

After getting up mid-morning and having some brunch, we headed to the last of the 3 big sights in Aizu- the Aizu Bukeya-shiki, a reconstruction of a samurai residence. As the "reconstructed" part implies, it was rebuilt and designed as a display and the main tour path leads around the house with outside walls of certain rooms taken down, essentially turning them into dioramas of different household scenes.

The two places that really caught my interest were the rice cleaning mill and the archery stall. Admittedly the archery is quite a gimmick but I also admit everyone looks cooler when drawing an arrow. As for the rice cleaning mill, it was cool cuz it was water powered. A huge water wheel turns logs that lift other pieces of wood that pound the rice.

I've attached a video because that's just easier than explaining haha.......

And, of course, no self-respecting tourist attraction would find itself without souvenir shops every 10 steps. Even though I do find it ruins the experience a bit to peer into a room filled with period correct samurai armour only to find the next one is selling keychains.

Only REAL ninja are clever enough to question the efficacy of plush toy knives......

At 2:30, I hopped back on the bus for yet another traffic-stunted trip back to Tokyo. Arriving 1.5 hrs behind schedule, I rushed off to meet Andrew and Yu in Tokyo station.

Our first stop was Akihabara and one of the many oft-discussed maid cafes. If you haven't heard about one, it's essentially like any other cafe but everything is just a touch more expensive because the waitresses wear French-maid outfits. It's particularly intriguing because most people tend to think these places "sell companionship" and that's not entirely true. The waitresses aren't significantly different from any other (friendly) cafe/bar waitresses aside from attire; it's like going to Hooters. Oh, and there's an option to pay 500yen to have your polaroid taken with the maid of your choosing. And, in our mini-lounge area, 1000yen to play games on a personal Wii.........

After that, we wandered to Kanda, between Akihabara and Tokyo, where Andrew's hotel was. Having resigned ourselves to staying out all night, we went off in search of an izakaya which, despite the rather trendy image it seems to have in Vancouver, are really quite down to earth, usually run by one or two people in food stained aprons bringing the food out directly to you.

After eating, we somehow decided we needed to eat again and walked to a nearby Yoshinoya which sells, at it's most basic, beef on rice. Yoshinoya (or any of the other *-ya fast food chains) is known for selling ridiculously cheap food for the crowd on the move, particularly Japanese salary-men. But they are open 24hrs..........

Anyways, after eating (twice), we headed back to Andrew's hotel and crashed for the night......

Day 3 -

I'm up at 6am because after a month of doing so, I'm wired to. Seeing that Andrew and Yu weren't awake and we had plans for the last afternoon that Andrew was in Japan for, I took the time to go home, drop off all the stuff I had brought with me to Aizu, shower, change, and then train back.

We had breakfast at the hotel and, what's this, we're going to go to Tokyo Disney?? Uhhh...... sure, why not.......

Yu left because she had to plan a work function, so me and Andrew and his two friends (who came with him to Tokyo) headed off to Tokyo Disney in Chiba.

We originally were going to go to DisneySea, which is apparently geared for adults (you can, they tell me, order alcohol at the stands), but we saw the Disneyland entrance gates were rather empty so we tried our luck there (DisneySea and Disneyland are seperate parks in the same Disney lot).


Really, the best way to describe Tokyo Disneyland is that it's a direct recreation of the original Disneyland except with Japanese. I really think that because the Japanese love the foreign aspect of Disney so much, they strived to bring it to Japan as accurately as possible. So you end up walking around in this constant haze of deja vu.....


We rode Space Mountain, the Haunted Mansion, Space Tours............ it's all like I remembered it to be even back when I was a little kid and going on them for the first time...... They're still great fun but....... it seems like Disneyland was designed for Japanese who want the Disney experience without travelling overseas. DisneySea, on the other hand, seems like it would offer something original.

3... 2... 1... Be Fantasmic!

Deciding we were going to make a night of it (again), I headed home to change (again) and then back into Tokyo (again) where I met Andrew and Nao, a friend of his he knew from karate. We met in Shinjuku and Nao took us to the Inoki Samba, a pro-wrestling themed restaurant honouring a famous wrestler in the Japanese pro-wrestling circuit, Antonio Inoki (I have no idea who he is.......).

But it's pretty cool in there. The bar in the middle of the restaurant, for instance, has ring ropes around the sides, they ring a bell to announce when you're being seated, and it was finished in lots of bright reds and yellows like many a wrestler's garb. Even better was when we ordered a salad and the waiter ceremoniously made us cheer for the salad (which was brought in a tube) and then proceeded to slam the tube on the plate, thus delivering our salad. Best was everyone around us cheered for the salad too............. yeah roughage!!

Finishing around 11, we headed off to find Yu, who's business function (also in Shinjuku) had by then finished and people went off to "ni ji kai"s, or "second meetings" although "after party" makes more sense. Note there are such things are "san ji kai" and "yo ji kai" so...... after after after party??

Anyways, we met with Yu and her friend and the 5 of us hung out in the bar just chatting.

The night ended around 2am with me and Andrew cabbing back to his hotel (the other three live in Tokyo) and, again catching a few hours of sleep, I woke up and decided I really should go home haha........

Day 4-

I spent the morning and afternoon cleaning my room (my original goal for Golden Week) and then taught some English classes in the evening.

Honestly, I don't really know how I made it but on Tuesday, I wasn't much worse for wear. Either way though, I can't think of a more memorable way to have spent Golden Week =P.......

A Stitch ride?!?! I'm sooo going back for that when it's finished!!