Ja-FUN

My Goodness!!

Haven’t written anything here for the last 2, 3 months?

Anyway, I just came back from the oh so lovely Japan!

Did I mention, I did all the preps for a year?

I had gone through the worst of times but I held on because of Japan, in a way, it made me a stronger person. It helped me pull myself back together during those times that I felt so lost and very empty.

Drama aside, Japan has been… one word, and in wide eyes, WOW! I have never been to a more picturesque place in my entire life. It’s like going to a different world, where modern meets the old and where the eyes can see beyond the realm of time and space.

Am I overrating Japan? Maybe. But I love how I was able to see the different sides. I went to the ultra modern Tokyo, where toilet seats are of heaters, then I went to Kyoto, where everything turned 360 and I saw the good old temples, I headed to Osaka, where I felt home. A hybrid of the city and rural life. I went to Kobe and appreciated the calmness, the interesting mix of western and Japanese architecture. I went to Nagoya, where I just felt too cold and saw so many lights. I went to Mishima and I love the serenity.

But I will not deny that my Japan trip has been the MOST stressful trip of my life. I was carrying the whole of my closet, how heavy can winter clothes be? VERY. I transferred from one hotel to another, went down the subway, JR Line in a hurried fashion. And my golly, I climbed the stairs and went down carrying my 16 KGS luggage with me. Where the hell was the elevator when you needed one?

I love the mix of the youth and oldie-but-goodies. I observed fashion-forward girls in Harajuku, I crossed Shibuya crossing several times to know how it feels like crossing the literal “X” pedestrian. I window shopped in Omotesando Hills, and marvel at how expensive things are over there. I looked around stuff in Akihabara, in the hope of buying a gadget, who was I kidding? (I have just enough money on the budget haha) I strolled Ginza, feeling like a high profile superstar from the Philippines. I mimicked girls in Shinjuku, trying my best to wear my most favourite OOTD.

I forgot diet and my ballooning weight, I can take care of that later on, I ate a lot of Ramen. I definitely spent most of my baon on Sukiyaki and Yakiniku. Despite how expensive the food is, I can say that it was worth every penny. I never really asked for Western food in Japan, when mostly, I do so in the countries that I have been to so far. (not so many though)

 I like how they take “considerate” and “conscious” along with “courtesy” seriously. When you take the trains and you decipher why everyone seems to be so silent, and if they shall speak, they almost definitely whispered, you’d be in awe. Spoken with a Japanese and she said that talking on mobile phones inside an MRT is not really prohibited, but it is a conscious effort not to do so with respect to other passengers.

The funny part of my trip is that when I was in Kyoto. I spent a night sleepless as I was very nervous. Can you imagine someone knocking in your hotel door and trying to turn the knob, not once but 4 times in the span of dawn to morning? At 2 AM, I heard the knocking. We tried to see who it was and we found a man dressed in white then he went away. At 4 AM, I heard loud thudding; I woke up to see what it was, and found that there was a man in black, trying to open the door. I panicked. We tried to call the hotel staff. He went and he saw no one. Around 4:40 Am, the same guy knocked and disturbingly turned the knob. I was at the door trying to push back, he went away. That was when we put a chair by the door to secure it locked from the inside. I was so scared. I did not sleep, even an inch of a second. At 6 AM, the knocking and the turning of the knob went on again, there were a group of guys trying to open it. And they mumbled something like they have a key for the room. And we thought, how could it be? Checkout is at 11 AM, did they give them the duplicate key? Later, we checked our own key… it was not in the bag, it dawned upon us, the key was forgotten in the key hole and maybe the 4 instances of knocking, they were trying to tell us that we left it. Walang gamot sa katangahan. I never slept for a night just because of being tanga.

Anyway, the weather was super cold, I had my hands all dried up and later, wounded. I felt like I was in the giant freezer. In this trip, I planned to “waldorfize” myself but I ended up like a chicken standing in a corner every now and then, to cuddle myself and stop myself from freezing. It was a memory I sure would treasure as time goes by.

My aunt told me back when I was younger, in Japan, you can see sports cars, apple tree, orange tree and in Disneyland, you are like a princess trapped in their books. And seriously, those words have been etched in my young mind. And when I finally stepped into the land of the rising sun, I almost immediately want to know if those words were true. Yes, I saw shiny sports cars. I took numerous shots of the orange tree. Too bad, I haven’t seen the apple tree and yes, I felt like a princess trapped in the Disney book when I went to the Disney sea. Truly, I was happy I was able to experience my Japan adventure.

You know you’ve aged when you slowly learned the answers to some of your questions. You know you’ve grown when you still are fazed with your imaginations. You know time has changed when you finally managed to make some of your dreams come true. In Japan, I did mine! J