Logan

Day 0: The flight was garbage but it doesn't even matter because I'm in japan. I nearly fell asleep in the airport as did everyone else but that's expected since it was impossible to sleep on the plane. Some dude at the airport asked us If we needed a taxi or maybe he asked us if we needed a taxi in Japanese or maybe he asked us if we were a taxi,  I was too tired to care. When I got to the hotel, I noticed how gorgeous it was. The lobby was really big and spacious and I just wanted to sleep. I went up to my room, brushed my teeth and fell asleep like a rock even though my bed had a wooden board  bifurcating it. Also by the way, Japan has some crazy toilets.

Day 1:  woke up feeling kinda groggy but I was still excited.  The breakfast was basically a continental breakfast Japanese style. The scrambled eggs in japan are a lot more runny.  I saw that they had natto at the hotel but I decided not to eat it because I wanted my first experience with natto to be authentic rather than from some pre-wrapped box. Today we went to arashiyama. It was really strange seeing so many rickshaw drivers. Those duded had some big ol calves. After we walked through some shopping district we began our ascent up the monkey mountain. It was a mission but I managed to make it up there. The monkeys were really cute and also really fierce.  Them boys was havin' turf wars on that mountain, i never knew monkeys could make such awful noises.  Also the view was really cool from the top. While the sites may have been cool, the dinner was no bueno. Vegetarian doesn't suit me. Neither does all liquids and all gelatins for a meal. Buddhist monks have it rough. 

Day 2: Today was temple day and incidentally also leg day. We walked all around Kyoto and visited a total of four different temples. The first temple was by far the best of the four. Its sights were breathtaking it had a beautiful view from the top and it was just all around peaceful. The other temples however were straight lackin. They seemed as if they were just touristy and were really crowded and noisy.  The dinner today was much better than yesterdays like there was actually fish and real food in there.  It still had some weird gelatin stuff in it but I still ate it. At the last temple I had an interesting chit chat with some Japanese college students from Shikoku. They were impressed with how good I was at Japanese. The conversation went well until everyone else came over and started speaking gibberish but I digress. Also, some old drunk business approached us at the subway and just said hello, shook our hands,  said thank you very much,  and then left.  Good stuff, japan.

Day 3: today was a long shinkansen ride to kumamoto. When we got to kumomoto, the first thing I noticed as we walked to our hotel is this super cool looking indoor shopping area. They had a big sports store and an arcade. Everyone in our group wanted to go and buy an adidas tracksuit and look fresh like many of the locals but time restraints denied us that ability.  The arcade was very strange since it was specifically an arcade made for girls which is not even something that I knew existed. Regardless, I still went in there and played Taiko No Tatsujin; it was the best. While in kumamoto we went to the kumamoto castle. There were a lot of interesting museum type stuff and the views atop many of the towers were very scenic.  One cool thing we got to see there was some traveling performance group. They were all dressed as samurai and they had some comedy/dance routine. It was like some stuff straight out of dragonball z. The dinner we had tonight was some really good udon. I got the spicy and it was actually spicy! No one else was man enough to drink the spicy noodle broth afterwards like I did. It was disappointing. 
Day 4: today was the day trip to dazaifu. The first destination was the museum. Something familiar that I saw there was the taiko drums room. I had known that taiko drums existed but I Didn't quite know that they were made out of bronze and metals.  Also since I think taiko drums are cool I liked this particular exhibit. Something unfamiliar was a large tachi ritual sword which was apparently 2.8 meters long or something. I didn't know that there were huge swords used for rituals. Over all the museum was interesting but at the same time kinda dull since it was a museum. After we went to the museum we were able to go shopping at one of the shopping district in dazaifu.  The stores were kinda jank all around but some stores were neat. I got to eat some squid on a stick and some octopus on a stick. Also I had purple potato icecream. It was better than I expected.  I also found a store dedicated to one piece and a samurai store, they both sucked though. 
The dinner tonight was by far the best I've had in japan.  The little curry shop off the beaten path had the most delicious curry i've ever had. Also the dude inside (one dude was waiting all of us) actually made an effort to be expedient in his services. He also got on a bike a chased after our group after someone left their glasses there. You would never get a restaurant experience that good in america.

Day 5: today we took a shinkansen to nagasaki and visited the atomic bomb memorial museum. On the shinkansen there was some dude who was talking to us while he was casually drinking liquor at 8 in the morning.  The dude wasn't even wearing any pants. It was like even if I knew fluent Japanese, I still would have no idea what he was taking about. Needless to say it was an interesting scene  The museum was a mix of emotions I guess.  I didn't really know what to feel. It was very interesting seeing all the various remains of the blast and the recollections from survivors were really powerful.The food we ate from the family mart was really good for convenience store food. The church we went to was essentially the same as a church in America.   The glover garden was really cool though,  you could see the western influences rampant through out the location.  The top had a really beautiful view of all of Nagasaki , you could see the ocean and the whole town looked really peaceful, you don't get stuff like that in America. Also the garden had some awesome vanilla ice cream that had a taste like I've never had before.    Dinner was mos burger, some Japanese burger place.  It was interesting to get the Japanese interpretation of the burger. It was really tasty but it also sucked because the portions were too small. I had forgotten that food in America is huge.

Day 6: Today was the hot spring day! After a 2 hour bus ride up some scary mountain roads we finally arrived at the hotspring destination. It was actually just a whole town devoted to bathing. I can say that I now officially have the freshest skin.  We went to three hot springs all with different water types. We took one with Iron in it and we may have taken a high acid bath with a ph of 2 but I dont think so because I didnt feel my skin melting. I bet that brochure was lying.  We hiked up some path and got to a sulfur bath. It may have smelled like eggs but I'm sure that it was great for my skin. After we took the egg bath, we went to a little curry shop for lunch. The one dude working at the shop (as is apparently custom in japan) was really cool and was super surprised to see that wee could speak japanese. Also the store had a famicom and a super famicom which was really neat. I was able to prove my superiority at battle tetris.  The last hotspring I went to was just a normal hotwater bath so it was kinda drab. One thing I noticed is that everywhere we go, the natives never expect that we speak japanese.  They always try to tell us things in English and are often not good at it. I asked a guy where to get some drinking water and he had to think about what I had said since he was not expecting japanese to come out of my mouth.  I just want them to at least try to speak in Japanese. When we took the bus back everyone pretty much instantly fell asleep. After that long day of bathing,  everyone feel sleep instantly.  When we got back to kumamoto, we finally had some free time.  We got to finally look at all the track suits at the adidas store and I finally was able to go the the arcade!  I found some really awesome game called mai mai orange,  a rhythm game not found in America. It was nice to finally be able to go to an arcade like I had dreamed of.

Day 7: today I met my host family. They seriously live in a Japanese style temple. I got to have a tour of their house and inside of their modern house was just a door to a commercial temple. The car ride to the house took quite a long time and it was especially something since the car was full of 4 japanese high school students all speaking in straight japanese. Japan is very different from america in that they are very touchy feely. I told them thats its alright of they spoke In Japanese and so that's basically all they do now. My host father acknowledged that he speaks in "broken english" even though he appears to know a lot of English. When I had heard that I was staying in a temple I didnt know what to think about it, I thought I would be sleeping on a futon and train to be a monk but it turns out they live in a normal house. The only special thing they do is pray to an altar before eating. After having a delicous meal of sashimi and after impressing my family with my chopstick skills I watched a little bit of japanese television and then crashed for the 5:30 wake-up time I would have tommorow.

Day 9:Today we went on a day trip to odaiba. I finally got to go to a Japanese arcade. They had ddr and sound voltex and beatmania and reflec beat and jubeat and maimai orange and taiko no tatsujin and popn music and basically everything that america needs to import post haste. I was gonna eat lunch today and then I realised that it would mean less time in the arcade so I skipped out on that. I also got to go to a japanese shopping mall. I bought some nice clothes that you definitely can't get in America from some store called tornado mart. Japanese fashion is the best. When we got back home I chilled with my host family for the rest of the night. We watched some japanese television and then we ate some "wild curry" for dinner, quite tasty. As is the norm, after watching a little bit of tv after dinner, I crashed in my bed because theres no such thing as enough sleep.