Japan land of the rising sun

to make it even more memorable they added about 8 inches of snow

journey complete

rewards:
once in a life time experience

the last quest

so yes i'm entering my last week here in japan my quests are done my job is fulfilled. its time to say goodbye to all the people that helped me in my quests and gave me great times.

goodbyes have a sad side always which i try to evade but life is still long so who knows when i will return to this country of great memories. i hope by that time some of the people are still there so i can meet them again.
i gave my self one last quest for this epic adventure...

photograph the sunrise in the land of the rising sun.

this is the second last post i will make for the last one will be the one where i fulfilled my last quest.

TOKYOOOOO

I just came back from my adventure to Tokyo the city of cities. After a bus trip of 8 houres from kyoto to tokyo we arrived at Shinjuku, one of the neighborhoods  of Tokyo. So our first quest was to find a map of the area to we could navigate ourselfs in this massive area of concrete.

after we got a map of the subway network we moved ourselfs towards Roppongi were we would have a randezvous with my gilrfriend Eri. After dumping our luggage in the storage we went on our adventure in the Roppongi Hills. In this Area stand the Mori Tower one of the highest buildings of Tokyo. I got notice that it was possible to go to the top floor to have a nice view over Tokyo so we went into the building searching for an elevator. In the building we found a board with all the companies that were located in the building. ranging from Google to Goldman sachs. apparently we took the office entrance and we didnt come any further then the lobby.

so we took our leave and searched for a different entrance which we found at the other side of the building. In a few seconds we were shot to the 52nd floor. Here you could see how the massive concrete city of tokyo spread itself until the horizon, endless concrete.
That evening we picked up Eri and after dinner we went to her brothers house were we would stay for the weekend. A nice and lively japanese family with two kids.

after spending the weekend with them, visiting akihabara, and eating a massive amount of meat at all u can eat shabu shabu we parted with Eri and went to our hotel to spend the week.  we visited a lot of the neighborhoods of Tokyo Like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, akihabara(again) and asakusa. Choosing between them to say which one is most fun is hard since they all have their own appealing points.

We also visited the Ghibli museum a place i really wanted to go to since i really like the Animations they make. It is a bummer u cant make any photos in there because the building is amazing it really suits the feeling they create in their movies. The one thing i liked most about the museum was that i could see the original background paintings from Oga Kazou stunning how he handles his light and colors.

Another thing we went to is a giant onsen, a japanese hotspring, in the Edo period style they recreated the whole atmosphere within a big complex. sitting outside in a 41 degrees onsen under the moonlight with some traditional japanese music in the background is bery bery naisu! It was a perfect ending for a crazy busy city trip through Tokyo

One thing is clear Tokyo has so much to offer that after 10 days there we only saw fractions of it.

so my journey to this country progressed so far that it became dailty life. i get up at some time, can be any time these days hahaha ^^, go to school get back cook sleep and then again. ive also seen most of the things around kyoto and ive been so many times in the center that it also became normal. 

so i making a list now where i still wanna go since we got 1 month left here in the land of the rising sun. 

first on the list is tokyo since no visit to japan should go without tokyo 27 of januari we will go there we will also meet another exchange student that comes back from the netherlands should be funny ^^. we will go to tokyo for 9 days.

in Winterbreak my Dad and partner plus my sister came to visit me, it was fun to see their reaction to the country and culture and ofcourse the epic battle with the chopsticks. we visited a few temples my dorm and the univercity. it was nice seeing them again but in a month ill be home. so it feels like an introduction to the dutch life again.

we celebrated a japanese new year which was quite different than the european one. no fireworks no parties just a visit to the temple to get your luck/furtune for the next year. even though there are thousands of people walking around its really quiet. at the temple (kiyomizudera) the rang a gaint bell 108 times to clean humanity from the 108 sins. what those sins are i ahve no idea. 

but yeah im figuring out what im going to do in the last month. Classes will end 21 januari so then my main quest line will end after that we will have a full month to travel and do as wel please. the only thing on my must see list is tokyo, the rest is all extra 

so if anyone has any tips of what to see in japan let me know! :)

daily life

so these days nothing special really happend just days passing by.

like we have done a few trips one to osaka again and one to okinawa the tropical paradise of japan, tobad it raind all the days we were there :l.

when it rains a tropical island become very dull, as if the life is sucked out of everything when the sun leaves the sky. none the less we had a great time we even did a little scuba diving, that stuff is awesome! it was kind of a rush for me since its all new and stuff and u get a little high from the pure o2 hahaaa. next to that it was a very controled dive, since none of us had a diving license. so i think they thought we couldnt swim or something. so they sorta dragged us trough the water, or we walked on the bottem like a crocodile. still fun though to breath underwater. i apperntly was the only one that spotted the stonefish one of the most poisoness fishies out there

since it was all such a rush of new impulses the most clear image i can remember are the bubbles infront of your  diving glasses hahaaa kinda sad. BUT was awesome! do it if u have the chance, dont chicken out or be lazy $%#@#$ do it.

and we went to the aquarium where they have wale sharks and stuff

osaka was LE MAJOR big crowded city with a 3 KM roofed shopping street. and the famous food street where u can eat al kinds of stuff but mostly takoyaki and ramen. Other then that not that special just a massive city


i have to upload some more photos but the pile is getting so big that i feel more and more lazy to find some nice ones to post :D so enjoy the panaramas for now

so last weekend we had a practice rugby i mean basketball match against the army..i mean kyoto unv...

i used to know there was a rule that u could only bring 10 people to a match. they bring about 25... there warming up is like a training day at the army running circles while singing some peptalk song like the  "we are going catch some fiiiiish!" guy with a whistle ordering everyone around it was an interesting site to see

we played 2 matches that day

we were with... 6 people... thats gonna be haaard work :D

so we started playing the match, i started on the bench. but after 5 min one of the guys got a finger in the eye so i was called to the battlefield .. i mean game...but those guys from the army play so rough that it looked like a battlefield, i dont mind about some tight man to man defence but this... once u make a fake and move infront of them to ask for the ball the just push and drag u back behind them... it was insane. They defence with their hand instead of their body, and that for a no contact sport :D... elbows flying everywere people got knocked to the floor. everyone had some battle scars at the end of the day.

there is a rule in basketball that every quarter of the match the fouls per team are counted once it reaches 5 the opposing team get 2 free throws for each next foul. well for as far i know this happens rarely. but this time it happend every quarter on their side. and they can do it becouse they bring 25 people so once a person has 5 fouls  its no big deal they have 20 others to replace  him.

in my opinion  a skilled team with a good team spirit but with a reallllyyy crappy playing style.



oh and i posted some new work in the art section, stuff that i have made for class.

i have been busy questing for a long time so there has not been many reports of my journeys. a lot has happend in these past days.

like my stamina is getting a big boost becouse of the basketball training, which is 3 times a week. and sometimes there is an additional day of trianing or a game. last week i played my first game which was really nice. but i still need alot of practice to get in line with these guys, they are really fast.
 

en natuurlijk drinken we ook wel eens een biertje met zen alle ~

there also was a school festival for 3 days, on this festival every club does something to make money, we made Takoyaki. in between u walk around the festival ground see some performances from clubs or actual bands that come by. its a big festival were alot of people from the city go to to have fun.

band met 6 drums HARD!