This morning I woke up and everyone was missing. It turns out that they went to the flea market that happened to be right outside of our door. I ate some onigiri that was left in the fridge and headed out to look for some souvenirs. We had plans for lunch, but we decided to cancel them because people wanted to look around more and because there were food vendors at the market. There were a lot of good options for lunch. I tried a lot of good stuff, but my favorites were the Takoyaki, and the Tanghulu grapes. The rest of the day was pretty chill and we just hung out.
In the morning we departed from Hakone after packing and saying goodbye to Kana. We took our first bullet train of the trip. But luckily for us we didn’t see any assassins while we were on board. We got to Kyoto at about one thirty and dropped off our luggage at our Airbnb and took a nice stroll around town. The town we were staying at had very beautiful streets. That night we went to the Stardust cafe for some tea and soup. The cafe had a calm atmosphere and really cool decorations. We met a couple of Paul’s friends there and had a nice walk back to the Airbnb.
Today I woke up, and I knew that breakfast was going to be very different. For breakfast today we had a meal made by a real Buddhist monk! The meal had three courses. The appetizer was good. My favorite part was the asparagus spring roll. There was a lot of different items in the second course, and in the second courses there was a pickled plum, and it was so sour that your face would instantly scrunch up. It was impossible to not make a sour face when you ate it. Then for dessert the monk brought us a banana cake drizzled with honey, and it was absolutely delightful. All the food was so good and the mindful, slow eating aspect of the meal made it so satisfying and peaceful. And everyone there was so kind, and it was truly an amazing experience.
We stoped at the Naraya Cafe for some coffee before getting on a train and going to the Hakone open air museum. There were a lot of cool sculptures, and I enjoyed seeing them and there were some very inspiring art pieces. After that we hopped back on the train and went to the gondola and rode it to the top of a mountain. At the top of the top of the mountain, they sold hot spring eggs and the sky was clear so we got an amazing view of Mount Fuji. Then we traveled to the dock and got on a Pirate Ship! But the sad part was it wasn’t a real pirate ship. And it used motors instead of sails. It was a busy day, but we did a lot of cool things.
Today we got up early and ate another delicious convenience store breakfast. Then we packed everything up and headed for the train station. Before the train got to the station, a group went to get some box lunches for everyone. But we couldn’t find the place that sold the box lunches until it was too late to order them. So while we were hurrying to get back to the train before it left, we stopped at a place that had some food, bought some meals, and quickly rushed back to the train. Luckily we got to the train with our food in time and everyone boarded and took off for Hakone. And on the train, we were lucky enough to see Mount Fuji! The train took us to Odawara and then we got on the bus that would take us to the hostel that we were staying at in Hakone. When we got to the hostel, we were greeted by Kana, the keeper of the hostel. We unpacked and had some free time before we went to the Naraya Cafe, where we got to sit back, relax, and eat dinner. The cafe was cool because we got to soak our feet while we ate.
Today started off in a way I wasn’t expecting. We took a bus for the first time this trip, but the bus was so packed. The bus took us to a train station and the train to the fish market. And then boom: Wagyu beef! For breakfast!
After the fish market, everybody split into two groups. One option was to go to a corner where the two streets were full of kitchen stores. And I don’t remember the other option because I was so dead set on going to the stores and getting two Japanese Santoku knife’s. One for myself and one for my dad. We had forty five minutes to look through the stores and I immediately went to the knife stores. I looked around for a while and decided what I wanted the knife to look like, but I ran into a problem. Most of the knives I wanted were really expensive. So by the time I figured out what to do we had to leave and I didn’t get any knifes.
Then the groups met back up at Sushiro (conveyor belt sushi restaurant). I wanted to try some new foods so in my first order I got raw and cooked salmon, and octopus nigiri. The octopus was tough and I didn’t really like the flavor either. I also tried Nato (fermented soy beans) and the flavor was fine but the texture was horrible and If you chewed it for too long it would make the saliva in your mouth turn into slime.
We went to a Gachapon store after. We looked around for a bit, then me, Ava, and Juana split from the others and went to Costco. We went to Costco because we were going to make dinner that night and because Costco is awesome.
For dinner, me and Ava made bulgogi beef over rice with a side of green beans and for dessert a fruit parfait made with fruits that you wouldn’t find in an American Costco.
Today was awesome. For breakfast we went the convenience store again, but right after we went to the most beautiful Japanese garden I have ever seen. It was so peaceful and definitely refreshing from the stress of the last two days. And if that wasn’t cool enough, after we went to a place where they sold parfaits made with perfect fruits!
After we had an option to go to a print shop or a zoo, and I chose the zoo because I wanted to see the panda bears.
The Tokyo sky tree was the next stop after the zoo, and it would have been a lot more enjoyable if it wasn’t so crowded.
We had another convenience store meal and a quick meeting and called it a night.
In the morning of Tuesday everbody met at the school and loaded everything into the bus. Then we took a bus to the airport. When we got to the airport, we went through security. Security was a lot less stressful than I thought it would be. I thought they were going to dump out everything that was in my bag but we just put our bags through a metal detector and that was it. After security we got to the gates and we learned that our flight was delayed an hour!
My first ever flight (13 hours) went well. I just watched a couple of movies and I tried to sleep but I couldn’t. It was a really long flight, but before I knew it we landed in Tokyo!
Going through customs in Japan was really awful, though. The line was a hour long, and it was packed with hundreds of people. It was also really hot due to the large crowd. The security in Minneapolis went easier than I thought. I thought if security at the airport didn’t go through my bags, surely customs will. But instead I just handed the people behind the counter a peace of paper and my passport and they let me right in.
It was late when we got to our Airbnb, but we checked in put our bags in our rooms and headed right to Teamlabs borderless. That night we had a convenience store dinner and a quick meeting and we were off to bed after a long day of flying.
