August 11th - Mt. Fuji/Mountain Day - Natural Environment/Celebration

Cloudy picture from Mt. Fuji

Natural Environment: As we woke up for an early start at 6 am we already ran into trouble. We only had 1 shower at the hotel and all of us wanted to shower before we left. Only Mohir and Zuhare got to shower because of the amount of time we spend arguing about who got to shower. We should have just played rock paper scissors... We had to be at the base of Mt. Fuji to start the tour by 7:00 so we didn't have much time. We raced into a taxi and told the driver to book it. As we arrived we saw the crowd starting to march off without us so we hurried out the taxi throwing the money we owed at him. We caught up to our travel guide a few short seconds later and asked him what we missed. He introduced himself as Mr. Tanaka and that the tour would take us all day and end around 5 pm. The tour was $154.90 so it better be worth it. As we started our climb I peered over a rock and saw these little lift carts going really far off into the distance... Odd. As we went we walked for about 2 hours with the tour guide explaining the history of the mountain as well as the nearby city of Tokyo as if we hadn't heard it a thousand times already. Everyone took pictures on the way except for poor Shamyl who forgot his phone and camera at the hotel. He remembered putting it on his nightstand and i guess he never got it as we were booking out the door. He kept asking me (Chase) to take a picture of this and that.... it was really annoying after a while but i felt bad for him so i did as he asked. We got told early on that we weren't going to be able to go to the very top because the air was so thin up there and they didn't have enough air masks for everyone. So that was a bummer but at least we got to say that we were on Mt. Fuji. At around 12:30 everyone agreed that they were hungry and the guide knew this from his past expeditions so they purposefully but a classic restaurant right when we got hungry. Guess what it was... McDonald's... great... out of all places or restaurants they put a freaking McDonald's there... like really! Come on! So we sadly ate our McDoubles... each of us got 2 because we were starving. They gave us an hour to eat and so we set off on our journey once again at around 1:30. To be honest i was really disappointed with the rest of the way. The travel guide didn't say much and the scenery was fine but it was cloudy up above so there weren't a lot of good pictures to take. O i almost forgot, you know how i mentioned the lift carts in the distance up above? Yea... well we got to ride one of those! That was my favorite part about the trip because nothing else could really compare. We ended early around 4 oclock because this fantastic tour couldn't get any worse... We called a taxi and on the way back no one really said anything... Except for the fact that that tour sucked. If i ever go again i will make sure to book with a better tour company than JapanICan. Once we got back to the hotel Shamyl even said "I'm glad i didn't take my phone. I wouldn't have used it much. Still though, send me a photo or 2 for memories." We were all exhausted by the time we got back so we just grabbed an early dinner at some Japanese restaurant. I don't remember the name because the food there was ehhh. After our dreadful day we all pretty much shut up and watched TV. We watched some Japanese TV game show but i clocked out in the middle of it and i didn't know what time i fell asleep. I want to say somewhere around 9 but I'm not sure. That was the worst day of our trip, thankfully. We had just gotten started!

Celebration: That day we decided to go to Mt. Fuji because it was Mountain Day. It is a celebration that occurs every August 11th and it started its first celebration in 2016. It is a day for people to celebrate and appreciate mountains and how and why they are there.

It was 86 degrees that day so trekking up Mt. Fuji was fantastic weather, it was a bit foggy as we got higher however. It felt nice that the temperature was getting cooler as we got higher. It probably dropped 5 degrees or something as we got higher so it was really nice. The only downside was that it was humid but that's the only thing that bugged me.

August 10th - Nara City - History

Today we went to Nara City. It is about 5 hour long trip however the beauty of Nara city's ancient ruins like the ones in Todaiji Temple are astounding.  We luckily got a rental car from the airport that was a SUV and so we were not crowded. We took turns driving after we left out hotel at around 6am to reach Nara city by around 11am and since there were 5 of us decided to trade every hour. Unluckily we got to Nara city at 12am instead due to the many bathroom breaks we had to do because of Shamyl and the many food breaks we had to do because of Chase. It was hot that day as well, probably around 88 degrees Fahrenheit, nevertheless once we reached Nara city we went to Todaiji temple straight away which houses the world's largest bronze gilded Buddha. The temple used to be near the Ancient capital of Japan. Although none of us were Buddhists we still admired the craftsmanship that was needed to create the Buddha. We found out that the Buddha was 15 meters which is 49 feet high. Also we didn't know this when we were coming to Nara city but the world's largest bronze gilded Buddha is also housed inside of the world's largest wooden building, it is 48 meters in height which is 157 feet. This made Todaiji Temple even more remarkable. The pillars showed that this place is very old but still standing as even the paint was staring to wear off of the building. We all wondered how the Japanese made such a big building with wood and such a long time ago. Besides the Buddha however there were also many more beautiful statues of what seemed to us were demons or characters of Japanese tales. These statues to were made out of wood and were still very tall. The time then started to get late and it was eventually 6pm which might not seem long but the thing was since we were to busy touring the Temple we lost tack of time and since it took 5 hours to five back to Tokyo we needed to leave. Then to everyone's shock Chase said he was hungry and wouldn't leave till we had some food. So we started to look at nearby restaurant and we found a place that served authentic Japanese sushi and we all went. The place was really cheap and we also got a good meal so for anyone that visits to see the largest bronze gilded Buddha in the world or the worlds largest wooden building I would recommend that you eat at Maguro Koya because the experience was truly magnificent. Kush and Mohir went to sleep during the car ride and so Zuhare,Chase, and Shamyl had to drive on our way back to Tokyo. Once we got home it was around midnight and so we went straight to bed without eating any dinner because of the fact that we were really late and also that we were late and tired from driving, or atleast some of us were unlike Kush and Mohir.

August 9th - Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Tournament - Sport

The Rakuten open tennis tournament is the biggest tennis tournament held in Asia, and has been going on since 1972 and is held in the Ariake Colosseum. When we got there first we were so confused since we woke up and jumped in the car to get to the tournament on time we at first were so confused by all the courts (and later saw on the sign there were 48) we finally located our seats we all took turns taking pictures on our phones except Chase who was complaining the whole time about how his phones camera was so bad. It was 87 degrees that day... we were going to be outside all day and were going to be sweating like crazy because of the intense sun beating down on us. Mohir was complaining also about how he didn't have time to go to the bathroom and didn't want to miss out on the matches also so he didn't go to the bathroom for the rest of the matches we mainly cheered on Kei Nishikori even when he went against Andy Murray. Who was born in Scotland but lives in England, the game went with Kei getting a few point ahead of Andy but then Andy coming back and winning, but we kept supporting Kei because we are loyal. Andy was the closest we had to America since to be honest were pretty bad and we all had no high expectations for them. The heat was so hot that they had to put the retractable roof up which made things ten times better and made us feel way better. When the game was finally over we hoped in out rental car and had to navigate the tons of traffic to finally go back to the nice and cool hotel to get out of 89 degree weather we ate a sushi dinner and then all passed out with Mohir finally going to the bathroom and Zuhare going to bed first.

August 8th - Edo Castle - History

We started the day very anxious since the zoo was a great time we wanted to see more of Tokyo and see what was in store for us in Tokyo. It took Shamyl forever in the bathroom and we missed breakfast because of it so we ate at KFC instead which was near our hotel. Once we got outside the warm summer day in Japan was feeling like heaven and our walk to KFC couldn't have gotten any better. It was a cool windy day of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, while Mohir was on Instagram looking at cool places nearby in Tokyo he found a place called Edo Castle which used to be the home to one of the greatest emperors in Japan which was Tokugawa Ieyasu and home to the rest of Tokugawa emperors during the time of Great Peace. It has a 8 km inner component and a 16 km outer component and a 51.5 meter wall. We instantly decided that it would be the best place to spend the day and so we did. Once we got there the sight of it was truly indescribable, it was definitely the most beautiful thing that we had seen during the trip so far. Once we finally got inside it was really nice and the interior was just as good as the outside and really showed the greatness of Ancient Japan. The tour guide in my opinion really deserves a raise because she showed us everything that we could've wanted.When Shamyl asked about a samurai armor and what it was made out of and  the tour guide knew that it was made out of various sheets of metal that were layered and how it took months to finish them. The guide told us that the castle was made from simple materials since it was first made in 1603 but these were strong enough to make it last all of the way to today. The rooms were quite remarkable and we took many pictures. The guide told us about how these rooms were filled with many great paintings from the Edo period also known as the Great Peace. Our favorite thing in the whole experience however was when we first arrived and started to look at the castle. We felt that it was just so majestic and the colors and material and texture all pleased your 5 senses. The day was becoming late however and we were getting hungry too.We drove back and while having food from a Japanese food chain called MOS Burger, which is a Japanese food chain. Kush made a joke and said "MOS Burger more like Microsoft Operating System Burger" and we all laughed. After we got to the hotel and just chilled and watched Japanese Anime shows till it was time to sleep. 

Our Map!

What an Amazing View!

August 7th - National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation - Technology

On the next day of our trip we went to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation which is in Tokyo. That day it was 87 degrees Fahrenheit so it was really hot so it was good to be inside for most of the day with air conditioning. When we were going there it seemed to us that it would be a normal museum where we just walk and look around but, once we got there we saw how interactive the museum was. The first thing was that we had to pay 210 yen to enter since we were all under 18 which is about $1.85. This was very cheap but Shamyl kindly decided to handle the full bill. Once we got inside we didn't know where to start and just followed where our eyes led us to. We went to this one place called the frontiers where we could explore space, the solar system, and all life there on a wide variety of scales. It was super cool to observe the neutrino's in our universe.We skipped the part where we could learn about elementary particles and the universe with a particle accelerator and went to the partial replica of the ISS which we could go inside where we were shown how some of the devices looked and it also had the signatures from astronauts who visited the museum. Then came Mission Survival: 10 Billion where we were given a model representation of the dynamic Earth systems and rapidly changing human society and then on the map it had red balls which represented disasters threatening modern society and we had to think about how we should deal with them and this taught us more about preventing these disasters and about the previous ones so that we could learn from it. We then went to an exhibit where we could see cells in progress through recreated life size cell models of a fertilized human egg and see then observe  3 stem cells that hold the key to regenerative medicine. We were starting to get hungry now and went to the 7th floor restaurant that was self serving and it had a really nice view of Tokyo including the Tokyo Tower from before. After lunch went to the Create your Future section where we tried answering the question of how humans should apply and evolve sustainable prosperity. It allowed us to put our ideas of a future society into action. A part of the section was what drives the force of innovation and here we learned about the creativity that is the basis for the revolutionary technologies that are changing the future. Next cam a simulation of what WE want earth to look like 50 years from now and how we can achieve it. Then lastly for that section we went to see robots in the museum and they were really cool, one of the robots was a humanoid named ASIMO and he was really cool also there were robots their that were designed solely to provide healing and enjoyment which i didn't know were reasons that people made robots. Next we saw the "symbol exhibit of Miraikan" which is another name for the museum and it was a rendition of how Earth looks like from space in a super high precision of  10 million pixels making it the worlds first globe like display using organic LED panels. After all of that it was getting late and we decided to go back to the hotel and sleep. 



Weather: 86

August 6th - Ueno Zoo - Ecosystems

Ueno Zoo is such an amzing zoo and is thte oldest zoo in Japan dating all the way back to 1882 when it was built. Ueno zoo is pretty big with a size of 35 acres and a monorail inside of the zoo to get from the east side to the west side of the zoo or vice versa. The Ueno zoo holds a total of about 2600 animals in which 464 of them are all different species which is an insane amount of animals to hold in a zoo in which we got lucky enough to go inside and actually see these animals. The main animal we saw and the main animal of the zoo was the Giant Panda. The Giant Panda has an exhibit which has a theme of Chinese Bamboo to give it that natural feel as if the panda was actually in its natural habitat. All the exhibits we saw had some type of theme to it to make it more realistic for the visitors and for the animals themselves. When we went to go see the Gorilla exhibit we realized that the theme for this exhibit was a Jungle theme with large trees for the Gorilla to climb and alot of space for the gorilla to move around in. Watching the gorilla was amazing seeing how it moved about and how closely related it is to humans having fingers and toes and how we were like the gorilla way back in time when we shared a common ancestor. Watching the Giant Panda was also amazing even though the panda isnt much of an active animal it is still a marvelous sight to behold because it just looks so nice and just seems like a really chill creature just sitting around and eating all day and when the panda actually did become active it is one of the best things you will ever see because seeing such a giant creature move is very interesting to see how its able to get its big body around and the activities it can do with such a massive body. After we watched all the animals we decided to ride the monorail back to the exit because it is a much quicker way of transportation in the zoo and we were able to see more animals on our way to the exit. As we were leaving we met a Japanese man telling us to come visit again sometime for they are always improving the zoo and next time we go he can help us around easier and give us an even more enjoyable time in the zoo. If we ever decide to come back to Japan visiting the Ueno zoo will be defiantly be on my go to list and im sure my group members would agree with me also (especially Kush who enjoyed the Giant Panda and how fluffy it was).

August 5th - Tokyo Tower - Technology

Technology: The next day we woke up really late because we were still tired from the Museum the previous day and we were only doing 1 thing today so we didn't have a set time of waking up. The last person to wake up that day was probably Kush because he went to bed pretty late last night staying up watching TV. He woke up at around 11:00 am and so when we all awoke we agreed that we would get some lunch before going to Tokyo Tower which was what we were going to do that day. That day it was 82 degrees Fahrenheit so it was pretty hot so we all went in a T-shirt and shorts. We drove over to an Italian Restaurant in Japan, I know crazy... The restaurant was called Papa's Pizza, we walked in and split 3 large 2 topping pizzas because none of us had breakfast so we were starving. We devoured most of the pizza except for 2 slices left, we got a pepperoni and sausage, cheese, and vegetarian pizza. The 2 slices of vegetarian pizza were left. We left the money for the check and left in our rental car to our hotel because Shamyl forgot his Camera. He ran up, grabbed it and sprinted back down. We left for Tokyo Tower which was only 9 minutes away from our hotel. When we arrived we went into the lobby below it to purchase tickets to go up to the observatory room, the tickets in total cost $40 to got to the main observatory room at 492 feet. We rode the slow elevator up and walked onto the observatory room.

 You could see the entire city! We thought that we might have been able to see our hotel but weren't sure. If it wasn't it looked very similar. We took lots of pictures and selfies as we were up there because it was pretty much a once in a lifetime experience. We stayed up there talking for about an hour or so i can't remember but we ended around 3 o'clock. Lunch took a long time. We took the elevator back down and went into the gift shop and bought these little miniature Tokyo Tower souvenirs, kind of like the ones they have at the Eiffel Tower, they both looked quite similar to one another I will say. They were each like 5 US dollars so they were pretty expensive but that's how they make money. I shouldn't have been surprised. We waited in the lobby talking about what we wanted to do next today but we were all pretty comfy with our phones there and such so we stayed there until about 5 o'clock. We then decided to walk around the place and take some outside shots... Duh, why didn't we think about that sooner! We walked around the perimeter only on a couple of sides because one of them there was a building blocking the front so we wouldn't have been able to take any good pictures anyway. We got in our car because we were getting to become pretty hungry and we drove to a restaurant, I forgot the name but it was another Japanese place. I got some more Sushi because it's so good in Japan, and the rest of them got some kind of curry with shrimp in it. I had a bite of Shamyl's and it was pretty good. It had a weird sweet taste to it. The Sushi was good as usual! We got some waters as our drink with it and ate and left the place after paying for our check and leaving the tip. It was around 30 dollars i think for all of us not including the tip. It was a nice restaraunt! After, we got in our SUV we drove back to our hotel and for the rest of the night we just chilled playing Kings in the Corner or another card game to waste the time. Today was an okay day, I hope tomorrow will be a little more entertaining.

August 4th - Tokyo National Museum - History

It was our first sightseeing place in our long list of places we wanted to travel to, in Japan. We had just woken up from our hotel at about 6:30 in the morning and almost all of us were quite exhausted, we were suffering from jet lag for quite some time, still being to used to the American clock. Kush got everyone up, by pouring water on Zuhare and Mohir who were dead sleepy, and wanted to delay our first trip to the next day, but as sleepy as I was, I still really wanted to go and not delay our first sightseeing place in Japan. We all had gotten ready by about 8:00, and started heading downstairs to the lobby to have our breakfast, which would be served in the dining area. We had a good lunch and spent about 1 hr in the lunchroom, as we were talking for most of our eating time. We each spoke about how excited and what did we want to see in the first part of our trip to Japan, the Tokyo National Museum. That day is was 79 degrees Fahrenheit, but Mohir and Kush weren't that interested as always, none of them have ever even been slightly interested in museums as they only wanted to play the video games, that they had brought from the United States. Zuhare wanted to see what exactly was special about the place, and Chase was quite interested in the Buddhist artifacts and history that they had in the museum. As we took a taxi to go to our location, we talked about the museum and about how they were six buildings in the museum that each represented and showed different types of artifacts and artwork related to Japan. The Honkan building featured a variety of Japanese artwork from ancient times to the 19th century including antique Buddhist statues, painted sliding doors, scrolls, and maps in addition to cultural items such as masks, costume, armor and the weapons. To the left was the Hyokeikan building which was basically built as a representation of Western Style architecture during the Meiji period in Japanese history. The Toyokan building, which was to the right of the Honkan building featured galleries and displays of Asian Art and artifacts from China, Korea, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, India and Egypt. The other buildings house paintings that were donated and were preserved from Ancient Japan, some of those paintings were donated by private donors who had bought the ancient paintings from auctions and other places. Since we didn't really have that much time and were still suffering from Jet Lag we decided to only go check out the Honakan, Hyokeikan, and Toyokan buildings, as they were the better renown exhibits and had more items and artifacts in store. We first went to the Honkan building which was quite crowded and featured some of the many ancient paintings that Japan had, each one felt so unique and raw, completely reflecting the immersive and rich cultural history that Japan has. Even the likes of Mohir who didn't care much about paintings who he deemed boring, started to get awed by the sheer brilliance of the paintings. Then we moved on to the Hyokeikan building on the left, where we explored the impact the Western government had on the Japanese when the first contact was established between the societies during the Meiji Period. The architectural change that occurred in Japan after western contact was established was utterly fascinating to watch, as you could clearly tell that by the items shown the Japanese government had learned that they were much behind the Westerners and wanted to bring out real change. I and Zuhare who were history buffs were really fascinated by the cultural and governmental change that occurred in Japan after the first contact with the Westerners. Kush, Chase, and Mohir were far more interested in the Toyokan building because even though they appreciated the change Japan made, they were far more curious about the arts and crafts of other countries that were present in the museum. Once we completely finished exploring the Hyokeikanbuilding in the museum we wanted to go see the last exhibit of our day, the Toyokan building which featured arts and crafts of other countries such as India, China, Egypt, Korea and other Asian countries. The Exhibit was very beautifully decorated and the lighting in there was quite dark in comparison to the other buildings as the museum we supposed wanted to emphasize more on the awe and stunning visuals of the artifacts so that they could catch our attention a lot better. Guess they were right, cause overall that was the best building and experience we could have ever thought of having in our first exploration day in Japan. The artifacts and the history behind them were so fascinating, that I, to be honest, completely regretted not going to this exhibit in the morning. Almost everyone in our group absolutely loved every minute of our time that we spent marveling at these prehistoric works of pure gold. But once it 5 the museum closed and we were required to go back to the hotel, on the way back all of us were talking so ecstatically about the experience we just had during our day. For all I knew, this was the absolute perfect way to start off our long trip by exploring the history and culture that has built and sustained Japan for centuries.




Weather: 84