The Return of Japan...and Aizu!

I'm back in Japan! It's been a while since I've posted anything here, hopefully someone is still reading!

I left for Japan on Saturday at 4 in the morning, and once again skipped sleep that night. As I was boarding my plane in Detroit, I found out my dad missed his second plane, so he’d be coming a day later. The flights were pretty uneventful. For the killer 13 hour one, I was in a middle seat, next to a Chinese mother and her kid. That sucked a bit, but it could have been worse. When I got to the airport, I waited around for over an hour or so, until I managed to use the public payphones to call Kyoko, and found out that she couldn’t come, so I took a bus to Yokohama. The next day, I got up early to go meet my dad at the airport with Kyoko. The first question he asked was “what’s with all the masks?” We took the damn long train back to Shinjuku. I showed him around my school, and then we went to Shibuya, where he and Kyoko were the oldest people. He had a few humourous reactions to the people there. Dad: She shouldn’t wear pants like that!
Me: That’s a man.
On the return trip from Shibuya, we witnessed a girl attempting to catch a leaving train by hoisting herself between the doors. And she made it! Except for her face, which slammed against the door and caused her to fall and have a complete wipe out. She ended up getting her leg caught between the train and the platform. Luckily, she got it out before the train sped off. After Shibuya, we returned to Shinjuku, where we met up with my host family. It was great fun. We ate at a really tall hotel building, on level 45 (the top), where we had a very fancy meal. Great view of the city. My host mom was in a kimono and my host dad in a suit.
The day after that, my dad, Nu and I set out for Aizu Wakamatsu. It was an awesome trip. Nu was a great host, he paid for absolutely everything, and even made a trip there before to do research on the best places to eat (the transportation alone costs upwards of 200 dollars, I wager). So we really experienced the best of the best. The train rides were pretty long (like 6 hours total, although we transferred about 5 times). When we got to Aizu Wakamatsu, we walked around for a while, and went to a really nice traditional restaurant. The meals were set, but excellent. We had about 20 different dishes, all very different and new tastes. I noticed that in Aizu, people were a lot friendlier to foreigners than in Tokyo. The cab drivers were very chatty. People sometimes acknowledged us in the streets. This one ticket window guy at the train station seemed ridiculously happy to talk to me and use English. He was like “WHERE ARE YOU FROM? OH, I LOVE AMERICA. I SEE YOU AGAIN SOON!” And he was vigorously shaking my hand. I want to see more of these toothless, friendly guys.
We made our way up the mountains to 大内宿 (oouchijyuku), which is a really interesting, old, thatch-roofed village. It was hardcore. There were very few tourists (no white people to be seen), so it was the perfect authentic Japanese experience. It was deserted when we got there – we were the only ones walking around the street(s). There wasn’t much to do, so we went to our ryokan, where we met with the hostess, who was awesome. Since oouchijyuku is way north of Tokyo, it was freezing, and there was still snow around. So it was really nice being in this old, fire-lit inn. It was family run, and at the time, she was the only one there. We were the only guests. So we had a very private dining experience. There was SO MUCH FOOD, oh my god. But it was all delicious. There were several things I tried for the first time. I was the only one of the three of us, who ate the whole portion of horse, I thought it was delicious (although I felt a little dirty while eating it). The next day, we had natto, which is a fermented bean paste, and is known to be particularly disgusting to foreigners, but I didn't find it to be too horrible. When we went to sleep, 主人さん(our hostess) gave us these amazing foot warmers to sleep with. She put hot coal inside this metal box with some heat-retaining material, and it lasted the whole night, and was still very hot in the morning.
In the morning, we walked around the town again, this time with other people around. The local shops were a lot of fun to browse. I noticed that this one shop had a ton of erect cocks (it’s apparently a sign of fertility, so people put them in their houses and worship them). So of course, being the gaijin I am, I had to go photograph it. I didn’t notice the shopkeeper was looking at me taking pictures of her collection of dicks until afterwards, though. They even had this one dick dressed up in a traditional Japanese outfit. Also, in our ryokan, at the entrance, was a statue of a boy in a yukata outfit, sitting cross-legged and laughing. I didn’t notice it until like the 10th time I saw it, but his cock was hanging out under his robes. What the hell?
Finally, we went back to Aizu Wakamatsu, where we enjoyed a nice 温泉 (hot springs) bath. Once again, we were the only people there, which was pretty amazing, and would never happen in a touristy spot. It was an outdoor onsen, so we were on a balcony, overlooking a beautiful river and forest. At one point, my dad went to the top floor, where he enjoyed the scenery. A poor old Japanese lady was out doing her laundry or something, and stopped dead in her tracks and just stared at this stark naked British guy in all his glory. Pretty funny.
The ride back wasn’t terribly eventful. When we got home, we had a great dinner and got quite drunk. Kyoko drunk-dialed my mom in the US, and prefaced the message with “I’m drunk, this is Kyoko.”

I went to Kyoto the day after, so stay tuned for that entry! It will probably be up tomorrow or something.