Hi! Welcome to Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun. Have you been before? I had the opportunity to live in this completely marvelous and absolutely foreign (to me) place for 13 months back in 2011-2012. How did I get there? you might ask. You can read about that journey HERE.
My first day in Japan is a bit of a blur in my memory, to be honest. However, a few moments stand out in my memory and I would be remiss if I didn’t recall them for you briefly (despite these recollections technically belonging in my previous Japan post.) I arrived on a flight mid-afternoon, had to circle around the airport with the driver to pick up one of my cast mates and then we made the 45 minute drive from Kansai International Airport to our accommodations. Beyond that, I remember an orientation of sorts in the lounge of our apartment building, getting settled in my apartment, getting a laundry basket full of toiletries and things to get me started in my apartment, and then beyond that, I really only remember two things...my first dining experience in Japan at a yakitori restaurant (yakitori literally means “grilled chicken” and it’s used to describe restaurants whose feature dishes are various forms of chicken that are charcoal-grilled on skewers. They are typically accompanied by other skewers of grilled things and various small plates...SO good.) It was during this dinner that I learned that there are many ways to count in Japanese and the version that you would use in a restaurant to ask for 4 skewers of chicken would be different from saying “4 chickens” which would be different from saying 4 umbrellas. Obviously umbrella and chicken are different...but the number 4 is what I’m referring to here. (For those curious, it’s the different between “yottsu”, “yon-hiki,” and “yon-hon” respectively. But you can also use the word “shi” for 4 in some cases...confusing.)
I then got a walking tour around the neighborhood and saw my first Japanese penis - a heavily intoxicated man was relieving himself on the street near the subway station. He was turned away from the sidewalk and was facing directly into traffic - the least offensive way to pee in public(?????) Ah, memories...I digress.
One of the things that I really came to admire and appreciate about the Japanese and my time in Japan was their appreciation of the seasons and how they honored each of those seasons through their food, their festivals, and their appreciation of nature. Hence the name of this section. It, also, makes chronological sense for this recollection...duh.
So I got to Japan, we got the show open, and I got my bearings...a bit. Then what? Well, I suppose I should give a little context to my community and what I came into to give you an idea of how my life would start to take shape whilst abroad in Japan. All of the foreigners (westerners that were mostly from the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia with a few exceptions) and a handful of our Japanese co-workers all live in this apartment complex called “Kaigandori House.” Kaigandori is located on a man-made island and honestly...I don’t know what the island was called. Was it Chikko? That’s a name on the maps, but so is the subway station Osakako. That was our station - and a lot of the neighborhoods and regions are named after the subway stations (or the other way around?) Anyway, on this island was a grocery store, some restaurants and bars, convenience stores, and the smallest “mountain” in Japan (pretty sure I mean that literally), Mount Tenpō, which is contained within Tempozan Park. Adjacent to this park is Tempozan Mall with some random shops, a big ferris wheel that lights up at night to tell you the weather for the next day (sunny, cloudy, or rainy - red, green, or blue respectively…only 3 settings), and a cruise ship terminal. Near to all of this, but on the opposite end of the island from our house, is the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan. So, it feels like there is a lot going on upon this tiny little island, right? It actually felt pretty quiet a lot of the time, to be honest. To be fair, seeing as I worked at the park all day, five days a week, I wasn’t around the island too much during the day. There were several warehouses on an adjacent island, so it kind of had an industrial vibe on our end. Oh, and there was the Junior High School that was right across the street, so we got to watch the occasional marching band performance and hear the daily workouts for PE happening in the yard if we were around.
So, we lived on this island, in a house called Kaigandori. As westerners being asked to relocate to a foreign country for months on end (and mind you, some of the people I met and worked with had been working at USJ for 8+ years!), Universal Studios made sure we each had our own single-person accommodations, gave us a local cell phone for work use, a bike to help us get to and from work, and also train tickets that covered all of the stations to and from work and home. We were set up with Japanese bank accounts where they would deposit our per diems at the start of each month, plus we had a monthly salary and the chance to earn bonuses on top of that. It was a sweet, sweet setup.
Within Kaigandori house, there was a sort of lounge area where people could commune, there was a rehearsal studio on-site that could be checked out, and then there was “dōzo.” In Japan, the word “dōzo” means “go ahead” or “here you go.” Some examples of how it might be used are as follows (a non-exhaustive list by any means):
Scenario 1 - Let’s say you are at a fast food restaurant or a convenience store like 7-eleven and you are waiting in line to check out. You are next in line and the person in front of you completes their transaction. The cashier would then look at you (next in line) and say “Hai, dōzo,” basically saying, “come on, you’re next!”
Scenario 2 - You could be at a restaurant and a host or hostess is taking you to your seats. They would get you to your table and gesture to the seats and say “Hai, dōzo,” as they are inviting you to take your seats.
Scenario 3 - Let’s say you are with your friends and you are having a picnic in the park or at some sort of gathering. Everyone has brought delicious snacks and drinks and you are keen to try that funny looking cracker that you’ve never seen before. You look at your friend and say, “May I?” and they would obviously respond “dōzo, dōzo!” because they are amazing friends and super hospitable. They would basically be telling you, “Of course! Go ahead!”
Well, in our house we had a room called “go ahead, help yourself.” But in Japanese, of course. At the end of the year, cast members who were not staying could take anything they wanted to get rid of (as opposed to shipping unneeded items or hauling them in suitcases or just throwing out good stuff) to this room as a donation to future casts to help them feel more settled and at home in their new apartments. Sort of a “pay-it-forward” situation on a first-come, first-serve basis...and what a beautiful thing that was! I got a rice-cooker, some cute plates, extra cutlery, and a few items in the decor department for sure. Outside of that, I don’t really remember, but I love that the spirit of “dōzo” exists.
Another few things that I quickly realized made life really grand for me in Japan: acquiring a portable wi-fi egg + an iPod touch; bring a part of a mixed cast of Japanese and Gaijin (‘Gaijin’ is the Japanese word for westerners - and most of those in my cast and the Hello, Kitty cast were veterans to USJ and thus veterans to Japan); and my contract overlapping with some of the cast members from the previous year...who were also now, technically, veterans.
I’ll start with the overlapping cast. To get to know and spend time with some of these people was such a dream, because not only did we get a taste of what the shows looked like the year before us (a lot of them change from year to year), but some of those cast members were unbelievably talented (look up LaVance Colley and prepare to lose your mind) and it was a pleasure to get to watch them sing and perform. As well, they were eager to help us new folk get our bearings, show us all of their favorite watering holes, shortcuts around town, and generally have some uninhibited fun with us as they knew that their time was limited and they had little left to lose when it came to uninhibited fun.
One of the best decisions I made while I was over there was to get a portable wi-fi egg - literally a device that looks like a metallic egg - that was a sort of portable hotspot for any device that I had. What I ended up doing was creating a “poor man’s iPhone” before I personally owned an iPhone. I bought an iPod touch and then downloaded any and all apps that I might use, including travel apps, FaceTime, etc. With my little wifi egg, which I think cost somewhere between $30-$40USD per month, I could create a hotspot and use my iPod as an iPhone anywhere, which made keeping in touch with friends and family super easy. I could also navigate my travels (the daily ones and the more extensive ones) with ease and not feel like a geriatric. Definitely the (second) best investment of the year 2011. [**Note - I wrote this and then promptly forgot what the best investment of the year was. Hmmm...I’ll have a think. ***2nd Note - I remembered…The best investment was splitting the cost of my sister’s plane ticket with her and getting her to Japan for a couple of weeks.]
And more important than both things above, I don’t know what my life would have been like had I been in another cast, especially one with all noobs and very few Japanese people in it. Probably a lot more “white” and “western” feeling in my choices of places to go and things to do in my free time. What I mean by that is that I probably wouldn’t have been able to dive as deep into the culture, find all of the local joints, or understand my adopted home as intimately as I did had I not had the cast around me that I had. Or I would have had to work harder for it. Every day when I came into work, I was able to practice my Japanese. I had the coolest and arguably some of the most talented Japanese cast members in my show and in the neighboring ‘Hello, Kitty’ show. I’m talking competition winning BBoys and girls, talented singers, USJ’s Galinda from when they did the musical ‘Wicked’ (yes, Universal Studios Japan did a shortened version of the popular musical in it’s Wizard of Oz themed section...they closed it months before I got there. Dang.) And gosh were they all funny, too. I’ve never laughed so much. Oh, and then there were all of the people that played the Sesame Street characters as well.
Have you ever been to Times Square in New York City? There are these knock-off Mickey Mouses and Spidermen and Marios and Luigis and Ironmen that walk around taking pictures with people and trying to charge them a couple of bucks for it. They couldn’t give a shit if they take their heads off and ruin the illusion, because dang-it, it’s hot and they aren’t getting paid enough. It also feels super janky and scammy. It’s not uncommon to see two or three people dressed up as Spiderman at once; and it’s hilarious to pop into McDonald’s on 42nd Street around meal time and see them sitting in the back with their heads on a chair, eating during their break. When I think of these people, the word professionalism never comes to mind. At Universal Studios Japan, it is the opposite and the Japanese take their character work VERY seriously. They come in and have handlers that help them get suited up in a private dressing area. Only the character actors and their dressers are allowed in that dressing area. Once that head goes on, it doesn’t come off until the show is over, and they are in character THE. WHOLE. TIME. It is really impressive to see their work ethic and their dedication to the illusion of Cookie Monster or Elmo or Bert and Ernie. It was nice to get to know the people behind the characters between shows but, due to the fairly demanding nature of their work, there were always a couple of people playing each character every day. At first, it was hard to know who was playing Cookie Monster or who might be inside Big Bird because they would never say who they were. They wouldn’t even speak through the costume...never a sound! But over time, as I learned how each person played the character, I was able to deduce which person was in the suit and I even had favorites. They were such a joy to work with every day and no matter what kind of day I was having or how much I wanted to roll my eyes at the show I was doing, I always smiled with them around.
I, also, want to mention and give a special shout out to the wonderful western cast mates in my show and in the ‘Hello, Kitty’ show (as we shared a dressing room, they were also very much a part of my experience and day-to-day life): Alice, Charity, Roel, Max, Aaron, Adelaide, & Lauren. The first 3 were in my show and the last 4 were in the Kitty show. I loved them all, but I’m going to zero in on Charity. Charity was one of those veterans who had the ability to come back year after year. She had already done three or four years in Japan when I met her in 2011. Definitely at least three, because I remember she had played Elphaba in ‘Wicked’ for 3 years. It was one of her dreams and it’s easy to see why she was cast. Girl has some PIPES! Her voice is so good. Well, ‘Wicked’ closed and they sent her home. She thought she wasn’t coming back and I think she was starting to make some sort of peace with that (even though it gutted her and pulled her away from the life she had built in Japan over the previous few years as well as being pulled away from a boyfriend and group of Japanese friends that were integral parts of the community she had cultivated.) And then she gets a call and they asked her if she wanted to come back and do ‘Sesame Street.’ ‘Sesame Street’ is not ‘Wicked’, obviously, but I am glad she loved Japan and the life it afforded her and decided to come back. She was my Georgia-born slice of the South, my female counterpart on stage, and we connected almost instantly. She felt like home in multiple ways.
You see, I have been lucky in my performing career to always find a small handful of people that I resonate with and connect with deeply. Through the years, I have accumulated an extended family of sorts that’s scattered throughout the world. This family consists of people that I could go years without seeing in person or without having a deep conversation with for months and then if we were to get together tomorrow, it would feel like almost no time had passed. Charity is one of those people for me.
Not only was she hilarious and thoughtful and fun to talk to, but sharing a stage with her everyday was such a joy. Having fun with her and making her laugh and smile was so much fun. On top of that, she had 3 or 4 years in Japan on me and she was well known and loved by a lot of the performers and the Japanese fans as well. But, unlike some of the performers who, in my opinion, experienced Japan from somewhat of a distance, she dove in head first with the language and with wanting to truly understand the psyche of the Japanese culture and people. She and her friend, Jared, helped me to quickly dive into life in Japan and I’m so grateful they were there and willing to open up their friend circles to me and include me. All of us, the Sesame cast and the Kitty cast, got along and spent some good quality time together. If I’m being honest, though, Roel, Aaron, and Lauren were a little farther from the core of my group - mostly because they worked on the days I had off and I worked on the days they had off, so it wasn’t as easy to get together.
*Watch Charity be ferocious HERE. Watch Charity and her hubby, Mike, be talented idiots HERE. And just be idiots HERE.
So it’s March now and I knew how to time my trips to work to catch the ferry that I wanted; I knew how to navigate my way to work via the subway; I had my crew that I hung out with; I had taken a couple of exploratory trips, both with friends and on my own, to Shinsaibashi and Dotonbori, the main shopping districts of town where all of the nightlife was, where the few stores that sold clothes long enough for my body existed. Where Barbacoa, the Brazilian Churrascaria, did affordable all-you-can-drink-and-eat lunches.
[**Fun tip: If you like to partake in an adult beverage (and let me tell you...the Japanese love an adult beverage) and you visit Japan, look for places that advertise “nomihodai.” This means “all-you-can-drink” and the price denotes a set time limit. You can usually do different “tiers” of nomihodai and choose from a selection of spirits that are anywhere from “well” equivalent to premium. Just be aware of the selection and time limit before committing. Definitely a good way to feel yourself. For those who prefer to eat until you are about to explode, look for “tabehodai”...although, if I remember correctly, it’s not as popular as the drinking version.]
And then there was Cinquecento. We, affectionately, called it “martini bar,” as the featured beverages there were a range of delicious martinis. Charity used to date the owner/main bartender at Cinquecento, Kazu, and I’m pretty sure he gave us free booze...often. It’s all kinda hazy, now. There were 2 great things about Cinquecento aside from the free booze from Kazu - one was that it was one of the popular “Gaijin” bars in town. This meant that westerners visiting or living in Osaka were welcomed with open arms and it was a good watering hole for those of us at USJ who wanted to get to know the expat community beyond our workspace. It also meant that the Japanese folks who loved Gaijin, who typically spoke decent English for us western heathens, and were curious to make friends and hang out with us (we were the exotic ones in this case, after all) also frequented this bar. The second great thing about Cinquecento is found in its name. “Cinquecento” is the Italian number for 500...and every drink, every cocktail, every beer and glass of wine that was sold in this bar was 500 yen (or approx. $5USD.) We like Cinquecento.
The only dangers to going out and drinking at Cinquecento were if we happened to go with our friend, Digger, who would drink us under the table and when we said that we’d had enough, he’d say, “Buck the fuck up!” then order us all another round. Also, a general “danger” when out and about at night anywhere would be missing the last train home you having to take a taxi. In Japan, the trains all stop around or just after midnight and start back around five in the morning. What’s the big deal? Well, I could get home for about two bucks or I could spend somewhere around $35-$40 USD to take a taxi 10 minutes to my house. It’s fine if you do it with a group of friends, but murder on the wallet if done alone and more than once a month.
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Enjoy some fun pictures from around Osaka below, ordered in a way that I imagine one might stumble upon them throughout a day (beginning with coffee.) A few things of note: the Japanese non-distinction of the English letters ‘L” and “R” in Hotel Robby (lol); the ‘green’ building (cool), the Swarovski covered Mercedes (why?); the cool street art (cool); the hotel with the silhouette of the woman and the ¥1800 (~$18 / 1 hr) sign is a ‘love’ hotel, designed for discreet affairs (bow chikka bow wow); ‘horse flesh’ on a menu (this Kentucky boy could never); the famous crab restaurant in Dotonbori (what? It’s famous…I never ate there…but it is); and then the streets at night (god, I love Japan.)
It was sometime in early March when the first TRULY eventful thing happened to me in Japan (although, I would argue, that every day in a foreign country is somewhat of an event.) Our cast decided to go have a cast dinner once we were officially open and had a little more energy and free time on our hands. We went to a restaurant whose name I don’t know. I just know it was in the Nishikujo station area, had an upstairs private room, and this was an infamous place purely for the fact that our Japanese colleagues were known to get really drunk here (specifically), lose their inhibitions, and sometimes even take off their clothes at dinner and act a fool.
[*Side note* - The Japanese have a MUCH different view of nudity and the human body than we westerners (and especially Americans) have. It’s not hyper-sexualized over there and, in the case of our colleagues, was often used as a means of comedic relief. I’ll dive more into this later, but just know it isn’t the taboo thing it is over here in the U.S. of A.]
What I love about dining in Japan is that it’s always a communal experience. The expectation when going out to eat is that we order a bunch of things that come on small plates and everything is shared with the table. The bill, itself, is also split evenly. Everyone carries cash on them always, which makes this a fairly easy process. Because it’s Japan, there is no tip involved either, taking the guesswork out of bills entirely. All of this is to preface this particular dining experience at this particular, naked restaurant in Nishikujo and to give you a little more insight into what it’s like to eat out in Japan.
So we’re sitting around eating, talking, cutting up, having a great time and someone decides to order torisashimi. “What’s that?” you might ask? Well, tori is chicken and sashimi...well, you know what sashimi typically is, right? It’s raw fish. So this was raw chicken. You know how Ahi tuna comes seared on the outside and raw on the inside? This chicken came the exact same way.
When presented with this, I think most Americans’ sensibilities would dictate that they shy away from eating something like this, right? I mean, of all the meats, chicken would be last on my list to try raw, but I did since it was there. And you know what? Hear me out, now...it tasted delicious. You might ask me, “Patrick, why would you even consider doing this?” Well, my (flawed) logic when deciding that it would be a good idea for me to eat some raw chicken was as follows: “The Japanese are selling this at a restaurant. This means that it is normal for them to eat. They, as a society, are not dying left and right from eating raw or undercooked chicken, so it must be of a better quality than what we would typically get in America. It’s surely safe for me to eat.”
My thought process is pretty laughable in hindsight. I later learned that the Japanese get food poisoning all the time from bad chicken (and other improperly handled meats.) It is socially and culturally normal for them to eat these things, despite the risks being there, and they’ll occasionally get food poisoning, as one would expect from eating raw chicken. When they do, they just suffer through it as a natural possibility of their consumption of contaminated things...and it goes unreported in most cases - it just comes with the territory. A food poisoning Russian Roulette of sorts.
Another thing I didn’t take into account and really should have when making this decision - most people have one organ that I no longer have: a spleen. This organ is CRUCIAL for filtering your blood and removing toxins, so while other people can get campylobacter or salmonella and conceivably recover from it after a couple of days of stomach cramps and bloody poos, I can’t. It is thus that I spent 2 days getting progressively sicker in my room and going to the hospital on the Monday after and spending 3 days in the hospital. You can read my thrilling account of it in “Unexpected Trip part 1,” “part 2,” and “part 3” on an ancient blog of mine. I wish I could tell you that it was so named because of accidental acid...but alas, no.
For those who don’t want to read more, I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version - after 3 and a half days and 3 nights in the hospital, I got better (and lost 10 pounds!) and started living my life again. Phew! Thank goodness for antibiotics. It was now fully becoming Spring and the Sakura (“cherry blossoms” in 日本語) were starting to come out and give the cherry trees a delicate pink color. Starbucks brought out their Sakura lattes and frappuccinos. There was Sakura flavored ice cream at the grocery stores and Sakura flavored mochi and Sakura Kit Kats! It’s that thing I was telling you about earlier - Japan and their seasonal celebrations. Instead of finding ways to have certain things all year, they celebrate the passing of time and the seasons with a flood of things related, but for a very limited time, thus making it more special. And believe me, I didn’t hesitate to take full advantage.
One of the popular things to take advantage of in Japan during springtime is hanami (hana- flower; mi- to see, look). Basically, people grab a bunch of delicious food and beverages, go find a spot in a park or out in nature where Cherry trees abound, lay out a full picnic underneath or near to some beautiful, blooming trees, and just bask in each other’s company and the blooms while the breeze causes the petals to gently fall like snow around you. It’s lovely and romantic and one of the best places to do this is in a place called Mt. Yoshino where over 30,000 Cherry trees cover the hillsides. So, we went there.
A couple of things to note about traveling around Japan in general:
The public transportation is clean, easy, affordable, and always punctual. It’s so easy to use google maps or an app (my favorite was “Hyperdia”) to plan out your trip and know exactly where to transfer, how much time you have, which trains and buses to take, etc.
Most of the major tourist destinations have trains that go to somewhere within walking or bussing distance of the actual attraction. The places that might need a bus to get you the rest of the way almost always have that.
If lost or needing help with directions - while you might have a hard time finding someone that speaks English well enough, especially in the more rural areas - having a picture of or the words for some sort of destination or point of interest you are seeking and asking a stranger for help will almost always end in a positive result of them directing you successfully to where you want to go. I found this is almost a universal trait and not exclusive to travel in Japan.
If you are an English-speaking human and are wanting to get inspiration, directions, more information, or let’s say you are needing help planning your trip to some specific region in Japan, www.japan-guide.com is one of the best websites you will find for this. Super helpful and comprehensive. They’ll even keep an eye on the cherry blossoms for you and tell you when and where to be to get them in full effect.
The Japanese spend a lot of marketing resources on promoting domestic travel. You know why? The country is so regionally diverse - the landscape and regional landmarks as well as the food and language are all so specific to each prefecture. I’m no anthropologist or sociologist, but I believe some of the diversity, especially that found in cuisine and language, is a remnant of feudalism from ages past and how divided the country was for generations and generations. Anyway, when you can delight in so many different regionalisms in your own country, why travel outside? I think that’s the thought anyway. (I have many arguments why traveling outside your country is important…but I’m also not the Japan domestic tourism industry.)
The work/life balance in Japan is probably somewhat unhealthy...like...work is everything. Wait, what does this have to do with travel? I’m glad you asked. When you take off time from work, or even when you just go out of town to a vacation-like destination on a normal weekend and your co-workers know about it, it is customary and basically expected for you to return to work with Omiyage (お土産) - local, typically edible souvenirs that are beautifully packaged and usually regionally specific, purchased for your co-workers to share. The thought is almost like you are saying, “Thanks for letting me go out of town and relax and not think about work while you were here probably thinking about work. Enjoy this treat and pretend you were there with me for a moment.” Nearly every train station that is the hub for a tourist spot has multiple shops that are dedicated to the express purpose of Omiyage.
Well, we all met up on our day off, grabbed a train together on the Kintetsu line and made our way to Yoshinoya. Our bags were full of snacks and drinks and our cameras ready to take a million pictures of flowers on trees. What I found fun and interesting about the place in general was that it wasn’t just flowery trees, but temples and a little town and restaurants and a whole ecosystem built up around the fact that there were flowery trees there. If you have the opportunity to go to Japan during Sakura season, I highly recommend Mt. Yoshino for your hanami pleasure.
A few takeaways from springtime in Osaka and my getting acquainted with my cast mates and my new home-away-from-home:
Working for a company that basically requires you to relocate and become an expat is typically a luxe situation. If you have any interest in long-term travel or experiencing another culture and have an opportunity like this, DO IT!
It took me a LONG time to find good coffee in Japan. I think now, nearly 10 years later, it is more common (in the bigger cities, especially) to find good coffee. When I was in Australia, a place that takes good coffee VERY seriously, I learned about an app called “Beanhunter.” I recommend using this when traveling. You’ll almost always find at least one decent cafe.
Convenience stores are KING in Japan. You can buy food, buy snacks, buy groceries, buy concert tickets, buy umbrellas, buy toiletries, buy basic clothes, pay your bills, pay your rent, buy alcohol, and MORE at your local Lawson or 7-Eleven or Family Mart. Talk about a one-stop shop.
If you can get over being uncomfortable and miming and just try to speak with your baby talk equivalent in another language (like Japanese), you’d be surprised how much you can communicate, how easy it is to find common ground, and how readily you can laugh with someone who doesn’t speak your language.
The Japanese healthcare system may be odd and I may have missed and desired certain things that seemed common practice in the US healthcare system during my trip to the hospital, but gosh...it’s so much cheaper there. Three nights in a hospital, the food, the medicine - it all cost less than $1,200USD. Why can’t we get it together here in the US?
I will say, Japanese drugs sucked. I had an allergy spell and they gave me this herbal shit that didn’t do anything. I just wanted Claritin and Mucinex, but they don’t have that there. It’s got stuff in it that is illegal there.
Dissolving a bag of Skittles in a bottle of Vodka overnight and then taking shots with it at a friend’s birthday party the next day is tasty...but is a recipe for a hangover. Don’t do it.
Japan was (and is) SO SAFE. Bike lanes are ubiquitous, there was never a feeling of not being safe at night, you could lose your wallet on the street and chances are it would be returned to you in one piece (with nothing missing.)
Japanese-style Karaoke beats American-style any day. Not only do you have a private room for you and your friends, but you have a phone line with direct access to the bar to order drinks and food that will be delivered right to your door. They give you tambourines and shakers and props to play with. You don’t have to wait for a bunch of randoms to sing...it’s just you and your friends taking turns.
Don’t dye your hair blonde in Japan unless you really trust the colorist...it will turn out orange.
Don’t eat raw chicken.
Below are some more pictures of Sakura Season in Japan and my trip with my cast to Mt. Yoshino. If I have one regret from this time of my life is that I didn’t have more of a mind to take pictures, blog, or vlog while I was there. Who knew YouTube and social media in general would be such a valuable tool…I didn’t even have an Instagram then. Ugh.
Cherry trees near Osaka Castle.
The above gallery, beginning with the Omiyage photo, is all Mt. Yoshino. What a beautiful day in my life. Thank you to Ayaka, Shuri, Michan, Yoko, Tomo, Charity, Jared, and Max for making it special.
*Remember to “like” and leave a fun comment if the spirit moves you. Also, if you love travel or just reading stories in general, please share and send your friends that also love travel and reading stories to my website.
**The Summer episode is coming. It’s probably going to happen in a couple of parts because a LOT happened over that summer and some adjacent and pertinent life stories need to be told in tandem to fully appreciate all that happened.
***Is there something that resonated with you in this post or any other posts of mine? Is there something that feels incomplete and you want to know more?? Do you know me personally and have a story that you want my perspective on, in black and white, for all to read??? Again, leave a comment and I’ll be sure and address it!