Japan 2011

I'm back in Los Angeles now, and I've been meaning to catch up on the blogging. My last Asia trip has left me speechless, but I just needed to get back home and put things into perspective.

It's time to talk about Japan.

Japan is this magical place. As my dad would put it you walk around the city and you "feel like a kid again," because you get so distracted with everything that is around you.

Being in Tokyo was the polar opposite of being in Manila. It's a well operated and uniformed society. Unlike Manila, you see very few children. Japan has a really low birth rate, which may be the lowest in the world. Instead you see a swarm of fashionable adults, who are constantly shopping, eating, and commuting.

It is a society where everything happens in the most meticulous order, therefore making it really easy for foreigners to get around. If was a relief for a control freak spaz like myself.

What I couldn't control was my wallet, but I didn't go as hog wild this time. The last time I went to Tokyo it took me a whole to pay the trip off, which included my materialistic purchases.

The top three splurges was a sweatshirt at Bathing Ape, a baseball jacket at the Nike Store Tokyo, and a couple of items from Jeanasis. That's it, but my wallet is still hurting.

If you are an Asian fashion bootch it's very easy to get sucked into the fashion monsoon that is Tokyo. You feel constantly under dressed, and the urge to buy really great clothes just compels you like a demon.

On top of that everything fits you.... perfectly. Well almost perfectly. My thick ass thighs didn't even dare try to put on any pants. I'm just saying.

My cousin and I wanted our wallets to take a break from hurting itself, so we were looking up Tokyo tours online, and we found the Tokyo Ghost and Goblins Tour. It was only $30 U.S. dollars and we got to see some of the spookiest places in Tokyo.

It was one of the most interesting tours I've ever taken. Our tour guide was American, but has been living in Tokyo for the past 25 years. We visited various shrines that honor magical creatures. In the picture to the left I'm standing next to the Kappa Shrine, which is a shrine dedicated to magical Frogs, who like to pull women into a river and have their way with them. LOL.

We went to the cemetery tomb of the Japanese artist Hokusai, who is famous for his painting "The Great Wave off Kanagawa"

The creepiest place she took us to was "Old Hags Pond." I'm not sure what the Japanese translation for this is, but it's a site of a really famous serial murder. The picture is below.

As the story goes, there was this old woman who owned a hotel and she had a beautiful daughter who would stand outside to lure men.

Apparently the girl would lure in these men to have sexy time, and after they went to sleep the mother would push a big ass bolder from above and crush them.

How did the old woman get this big ass boulder above the bed after she was done?

Any smart person would agree that there are holes in this story, but the tourguide told us that apparently this woman had killed 999 people. Then there was this handsome man who apparently got the pretty daughter excited in her panties.

When it was time for the old woman to push the boulder on the pretty man, she crushed her pretty daughter's face instead. Her daughter was her 1,000th victim. The woman was so distraught she drowned herself in the lake, and what's left of the lake is a pound around the monument. AAAH!

My cousin Marc thinks that this story is a crock of shit. However, there is a freaking monument with a pond so that the ghosts of the dead boulder men do not wander around the city.

The ghosts apparently cannot separate themselves from water, so there you go.

What's even creepier is that there is children's playground next to the pond which is to the left. I suppose every culture has their set of tales, and this one definitely creeped me out.

It will definitely be a long time before I go to Tokyo again. After my last trip which was two years ago, I made it a point to watch "Lost in Translation." I felt that I would have a better appreciation for the movie this time.

It's really easy to feel out of place here. For people who are looking to travel to Japan, it helps to pick up a few Japanese phrases. If you didn't do your homework, what usually helped was a notebook and a map. I would usually write down places that I wanted to go, and people were kind enough to direct me where I needed to go.

Although I feel really out of place when I'm in Japan, I appreciate how kind Japanese people are. It doesn't matter to me whether it's fake or not, it's appreciated. The more you travel you realize that you simply a speck of dust. My trip to the Philippines and Japan brought me the best quality time I've had with my family in a really long time.

I had to part with my Bestie/Cousin Marc and I HATED it. We traveled together in both the Philippines and Japan. What am I going to do without him?I feel so bad that I relied on him to be my translator and gps, because my ditsy ass could barely make my way out of the hotel much less around Manila or Tokyo.

I'm grateful that he was able to stand seeing my face everyday for three whole weeks. We put up with food poisoning, colds, and mental breakdowns together. However, he and I are pretty in sync in terms of traveling interests and now he's GONE! WAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!

We will find ourselves together again, although it's usually half way around the world. He is now back in Australia and we have resumed our usual schedule of Gchats and facebooking.

I didn't cry when we parted like the panzie that I am, because I cried a week before. I cried when my mom noted that Marc really takes care of me. My mom had to tell me to stop crying because we were in the middle of a department store.

I'm getting teary as I am typing this and always wish that Marc didn't live in a faraway neverland called Australia. He is the best travel companion a bootch could ask for. Everyone loves Marc and there is no reason not to. I miss you bestie. It was a great trip wasn't it :)