Is the question I kept asking myself last week Wednesday. You all should seriously look at a map of Japan and see where we went in one week. Tokyo to Kyoto to Hiroshima to myagima to Niigata to Sendai to Tokyo. I will make a map in Microsoft paint or something when I get back.
At this point in the trip we are exhausted from trains and subways and bullet trains and lugging luggage everywhere. Sendai was a nice relaxing break. We stayed at a ryokan--or old school Japanese inn. Paper doors, shoes off, Tatami floors, tiny tables with mats in our bedroom. A huge 10 course supper. An indoor sento. We needed this!!
I spent some quality time with Blythe on our first day in Sendai. We went to a huge indoor outdoor shopping complex and did the infamous gift shopping that most travelers dread. You never know who to get what and when to buy it and what will actually fit in your suitcase. We had a lot of fun, though! Until we lost the map. We were about a thirty minute windy walk away from the ryokan in...where were we again? Sendai. This could sound like a nightmare waiting to happen, but somehow the two of us found a travel agency, got another map, used that map, and made it back to the correct ryokan a little after dark. This was a huge personal accomplishment for me...I am a notoriously bad map reader. But I made my way through a busy Japanese city, only stopping to ask directions once from a little Japanese laundromat lady with crooked teeth who spoke no English. This was the beginning of my journey through self-navigation in japan. After public transportation and city streets in this country, I think I can take the city bus to my internship next semester!
April
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