the adventure

easter in Nagoya..

2006-04-08T07:23:28Z

HI ther, has been awhile since my last drop in.
Came back to japan, left italy 2 months ago...now here i am again!
no many news, but my life is getting "normal" and i don`t really know how much i like this situation actually...
i mean, i love being in japan, i love my man, but there is something i miss...i think is the "working lifetsyle" that doesn`t fit me very well, i miss crazy parties with crazy people...i need a MASS-REAL-WORLD, miss people screeming in the street, miss going to people`S house without knowing the owner, eat pizza for 1 week, meet friends at 4 o`clock in the mornig and wait the sunrise before going to work, waiting the week end like in the movie "traffic people" (who doesn`t know about it, please rent it now), like it was the biggest event of the year
i mean,things like that, enjoy life without think too much. Japan, sometimes, it`s really really a little too much controlled! WHo red my other blogs knows how much i dislike Italy and how deeply admire japanese real world. But NOW i can feel i need a holiday!
anyway, next week end is gonna be EASTER. Now, or all the foreigners in japan i really wish all the best and i`m sorry if you`ll never find anywhere around this country, anyone who know what "easter" is.
For this reasone, anyone WHo`s gonna be in NAGOYA without any plans, will be more than wellcome to contact me through Travellerspoint, ad I`ll be happy to offer a roof and a nice Italian Ester Breakfast.
bye everyone!

easter in Nagoya.. remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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i met my father,nothing changed

2006-02-03T19:07:49Z

hey everyone, i'm back to italy since 2 weeks and i already need to go back to "my" japan! i know, i might sund crazy to many people who look at italy as the trip pf theyr life, but i really can't be here anymore!!! i saw all my friends again and i went at lunch at my grandma's..that was GREAT! i don't want to tell u the menu, but, trust me, it was amazing! I even see my father again, and that was my main worry..
my father is a great man, genouros, smart and....gorgeous! but he has a problem, he drinks a lot, since always, since i have memory of it, since they divorced.
Maybe this is not the best situation to tell u this, but, i think i need to tell this, to write to someone who doesn't know me, who doens't judge.
anyway, he drinks more since when the split up, or maybe this is what is good to me to think, to make him "innocent"...His brain as totaly made of alchool, so his blod, i really don't know how it can be awake and walk...he starts to drink in the morning adding some "grappa" (kind of superalchoolic sake) OR whisky to coffee for breakfast, then he goes trough an undefined number of wines and beers, rum, liquors, as so on until bedtime.. he doesn't get crazy, i think he never touched me with a finger in all my lfe and never he will but he's totally lost the touch with the real world.
it looks like he lives in a totally different dimension...
I can feel it with his questinos about thinghs happened years and years ago, for example askning me if all my child teeth fell down of if i still going at junior high.. He lives anything never happend, he decides what to accept or not, if there's something he doesn't like, he decides to don't remeber it! I'm living in japan since 2 years and still, he doesn't know why i'm there. I'm living with my man, and he doesn't want to know it, e never asked me his name, he doesn't have idea what my university degree is about...thanks god he still remebers my bitrhday!
It's hard to write all this, i don't think i ever done it before, but i hope i'm making it clear!
He never gave one cent to my mum to rise me up, they got diverced when i was 15 because he lost everything he had gambling and with horse racings... I talked to him but he's like all the others drug addicted:"I don't drink that much, what are u taliking about? i can stop anytime, i just to know why u want me to stop drinking!" That's what he used to tell me whenever i tried to understaind his mind!
guys, i'm not looking for a reson why h became like this aflter the person he was, i'm not trying to know how to help bhim because i know that's impossible to change a person, i'm just trying to find out how I CAN MAKE IT! I mean, how am i suppose to see him destroying himself like this, powerless.
i'm 10.000 Ks far from him and i'ms cared of his mind, he loves me and most of all my mom, he's not stable, he might to something bad, very bad, i'm scared for those rifles on the top of the fireplace at his home...

i met my father,nothing changed remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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gosh...going back, but just in "time"

2006-01-11T08:33:49Z

My adventure is still not over...i don`t want to stop it even if my travel in this country became a normal lifestyle...work, home, housband, friends, cinema on sunday night and video on monday.
i really don`t want to go back..but the date is set:sunday 15th Jannuary, my flight is waiting for me at Osaka airport to bring me back home, but will not last forever..i can feel that!
looking to my closet wondering what i`ll need... maybe just a backpack will be enough..no, no space for Omyage (souvenirs). Maybe i have to leave here some of the sweather i made by myself at night, when, i still remember, i couldn`t understaind the television! should i have to bring with me the thousands picture i took in every single spot i`ve been to? no..maybe just a cd will be more than enough...
i can believe, since few years ago, all of us, coming back from a trip, we were full of films of any kind! Ｎo digital camera hidden in the front pocket of the jeans with a neverending lithium battery in the cap...i miss those days...
Anyway, i think between me and my new closet there`s something wrong..i feel like, when i`ll step on the italian soil next sunday night, i`ll be back in time somehow, like if there`s a Delorian Time Machine instead of an airplane parked at the International airport!
i`ve been here for 2 years, no stop, and i know that slowly, i`m becoming japanese.. I mean,for example, two years without the car. Not because i can`t drive but because i DONT NEED IT! i like to catch the sybway here, there`s nothing wrong with it! is safe at night, people are clean and kind, it brings u everywhere without gettin mad in the traffic jam, fighting for a parking spot or waiting ages to comeback home from the seaside on saturday afternoon! Yes, i like to catch the train! I rome the train is WRONG, first because for the people is not COOl, then because is fucking scary and stinky! It doesn`t matter at what time u got in it, could even be 6.00 am it stinks! Plus, On the subway, a girl travelling by herself, can feel the men`s eyes running through her body, up and down, like if she was the first woman they ever seen!
If u don`t have a car, scooter, truck, camper or anything else with an engine, u r done!
Cell Phone. In japan the cellphone cost NOTHING. Everybody`s got the cell phone, even the over 65years old ladyies use it! It`s easy and is cheap. It has everything u need just in one touch! NO problem with range, with stupid different rates depending to who u call, how often, which operator with, at what time in which city of the same country u r doing the telephone call...they`ll ask us even why we r calling...
Then there is the latest thing...the people. I never met in my life a population so kind and clean. It doesn`t matter who u r or where u come from they always smile to u. U get in a shop, and the girls working give the wellcome with a great smile on the face (maybe smetimes is too loud but is always a pleasure!). In all the shops and restaurant, people employed are well dressed,jacket and tie for men, hair, makeup, hands, always tidy, for women.
no one screems in the street, no horn yelling from the car, no men talking to my ass (even if pornography in japan is very..."appreciated"...).
There`s something scary in this apparent perfect society, or maybe is just something totally obscure to us to understaind... This ultramodern lifestyle, with free information channels coming and going anyhwere, super telephones, web access and cable tv even on the trains, pornography for all the tastes, job chances for the over numbered citizens...why we are not like them?
Why we can`t keep our cities like they do? Wy the trains are always in late and in awful conditions, why people always find the shortest and the simplest way to do things, buildng palces? why we can`t appreciate the lifestyle we have instead of complaining because the car infront is slow or because the last playstation model is sold out?
what western society has to learn, is not how to reach the highest speed with the new ultrapower car, but how to respect the road they are walking on.
That s about it..i needed this lines to say my point of view..i`ll let u know how`s going down n the sunshine country of Itlay.

gosh...going back, but just in "time" remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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pilgrimage to the Waterfall temple

2006-01-05T14:34:57Z

as everybody knows, in japan, last nite eve is not an event to celebrate with wild parties, night clubs, dancing and drinking untill next mornig..not at all.
This year, i decided to spend the "night" in another way, standing to the japanese traditions.
My boyfriend and I, left Nagoya (city where we live) to go to sky.
Now, Japanese mountains are not beautiful as the eurpean alps or the italian dolomites, but there is a sense of magic tha climbs the air....
We went through the high way for 100Ks, then heading towards Nagano prefecture and start to climb the frozen road up to the sky.
On the way to Ontake-san ("san" is used to design "mountain"), mountains are characterized by inscrpited votive stones standing on the sides of the road, all over the way to the Great Temple of the Waterfall. Japanese philosophy of life, Shinto, said that everything is nature, that all of us wll be back to nature after the death and, for this reason, Nature represents the world of gods (well knows as "kami"). Mountains, rivers, lake, bushes,all these elemests, are populeted by spirits, that people use to pray for, give offers to, go to pilgrimage from far away since long long time! That`s the reason why natural spot, even the simplier ones, are somehow pointed by a religious sign that can be a small temple,a simple altar with money cases for offers or just a "mon", the big gates at the entrances of religious places.
by the way, especially this area, is particulary known as more ..."spiritual" then others. Here is one of the biggest pilgrimage way to the Waterfall temple. The pilgrimage can be walked every time of the year, but doing it on winter seems to have more spiritual effect on the soul:the temperature is, usually, around -10 and once reached the Waterfall, the devote has to get change with a light cotton white t\shirt and just with that, has to climb the massive water fall to take some of the iced water, and pray. This has been done since few centuries and people keep doing it!
I skiped the "undressing" and i visited the Waterfall totally dressed up with boots, gloves and wool cap...sorry guys.
The sky resort was in the middle of the "road" an at nite, especially last nite eve, when me and my boyfriend were "patying", i really didn`t feel confortable..,maybe it was nothing but, the wind through the trees, the old building with its smell, the old sisters which owened the hotel...well didn`t make us feeling confortable!
any way, i spend the most exciting and spiritual last nite eve of my life!
even because in the morning, i had A GREAT SKY DAY!

pilgrimage to the Waterfall temple remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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novelling down the bridge

2006-01-05T14:27:24Z

u step down from the Great portal and u meet the thousands dears asking for ur hand full of dry rice..kids sceraming around scared from them and from their hard hair.
Someone said that this animal can feel your breath from far away, and can follow you down the great road towards the Todaiji Temple without u can notice it. It can be true or not, but u never sure about the popular legend of ghost right? u can`t believe that a dear can be, for few moments, ur protector on the holy road to the great wood complex in Nara.
there`s a story or legend...but i prefer to call it "novel", and I`ll tell it to u, in the simplest of the way, without scary shots or monsters coming down from the trees.
the novel is abut "something secret" hidden in the stomack of one of those dears. People living there, said that this is the reason why there r so many of them, so "the woman who`s looking for this thing" will find not few problems to look at the right dear!
going back to our novel...this dear, which doesn`t have a name, is the eldest of all those dears living in Nara. He started his life aorund thousand years ago, because of the willling of a great monk.
The monk, was known with the name of Yasu, and at that time, he was encahrged to defend the "great pagoda" that once was there (and now is gone..). He was terrific beautyful, and he used to express his beauty wihti his maners and words of pray and peace.
He spent most of his vote life around that pagoda, looking after it, studiyng the holy writes and...because he was a man...dreaming. And his dreams were about the power to see what is inside the pagoda. As everyone knows, the Pagoda is closed to everyone, inside the construction there are 8 or 9 floor instead of the 5 u can c from out side, and is built to KEEP the tresures of the Buddha (it can b a sutra, nail, hair ir even a painting). The only presences inside are the 4 demons at the bottom of the 4 sides of the oagoda. No one is allowed to get in. No one.
So. Yasu`s dream was to b able to look inside the pagoda, even for few seconds, just to c if what his master told him was true: "only the dears living in the park can c what is inside. Just them because only them Siddha can trust, and He knows that his secret will b kept in theyr eyes without danger".
Dears as the tradition wants,are famous to b very brave and leal animals.
Yasu, evryday at the sunset time, left his post in front of the great pagoda, took his "bento box", his sutra`s book and walked down the bridge, crossing the dears. He lookd into their eyes, trying to c what he couldn`t c, trying to find even the smallest reflex of what can b hidden behind the misterious walls. Every day, he kept seraching through them, but all of them looked the same to him, but still, every night, before going to sleep, a wish came out from his prays..the one to be a deras, just for once.
Years passed, and the time touched even Yasu`s beautiful face, painting it with a soft knife. Again, everynight he went trhough the dear`s eyes, looking for the invisible.
Then, when he was on his 60, he was tired, tired and tired to b alive, wihtout knowing what the pagoda kept in its body. And he cryed, because he spent all his life learning about life, philososphy and holy writes always infront of the great mistery of the Pagoda.
And now, a bad thought came on his mind... maybe, there`s nothing inside there! During the ages, men had to trust in something that might not exist and never will!
Yasu`s started to think that there was anything else for him to study or to teach, because there always will be something he doens`t know, a mistery that not even His master could resolve.
The same nite, a resignation smile came on his face and he got blind. Totally dark beacame aorund him. Closed in his cell, he got out.Just the long years spent in there, and the momory of each small stone unfernith his toes could help him to step on. It was a deep dark cold nite, but even without seeing anything, he went to the paogada, and he sat on the crumbled stones of the yard just infront.
A dear came towards hin and gave to Yasu`s its eyes. The monk could c again, a light help him to walk to the pagoda. He got in,but still it was to dark, the air heavy and his legs tired from the time on the earth. No fear, no doubts..nothing to loose, but everything to get.. and then he saw it.
I`m sorry, not even the novel knows what he saw that night, and no one does, i`m afraid.
Yasu died the same night. He`s body has been buried but his soul keep living wiht the dears, and at night, he comes back to the holy Pagoda...even now that is gone.

novelling down the bridge remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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dreaming of....a universal sky?

2006-01-06T01:17:48Z

i thought, that once you start to travelling by ur self, u can get used to the different skys all around d the world..but, i`m afraid is not like this.
it doesn`t matter where you are, with who u are, what r u visiting, there`s always something different in the air to make the sky changes. Trust me! u`r walking down in to a shopping and crowded street, full of people and it really looks like the same one u used to go with ur frineds after school in ur home town:same shops, year by year, same people buying always the same things, same christmas lights, same decorations on the walking side trees...but then, u look uo, just a little bit up of ur head and u feel THAT! it could b a smell (or a stink), a different range of the sky`s blue or the shade of a cloud u never seen before, but whatever it is, has the power to make u move ur feeling from the top of the excitement to where the tears born.
I can feel it, sometimes like a slap on my face just to remind me how different can be the sky and the places underneath it, but it even comes like a lullaby, taking my thoughts back to my own country to the people i met and the places i grew up in.
It`s amazing how the sky can change things, cover lands and reach the people heart..but still..there`s this melancholy side of "him" that everyone in the centuries have felt, and it wll b felt forever.
there is no chance for us to think that the sky who`S grabbing the the Mount Fuji now, is the same who`s pulling up the sun in Europe...but it really is the same, even if it`s hard to make ourselves confortable with this thought!
THe world has just 1 sky, but we know that is not universal..and maybe, it`sa better in this way.

dreaming of....a universal sky? remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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on top...

2005-08-31T18:06:03Z

hey guys..ive been in late to tell you my way on top of the FUJImountain!!!
appointment at Kawaguchiko at 9.00 pm. and start to go up atmidnight..
it was a warm night, 26 degrees, nice weather and alot of people all together ready to go. Before going the guide told us to bring something very very very warm to wear because it will be cold in the morning; then he checked how many people in the group and started to climb. The mountain isn't a green land with trees, streams of water or summer flowers...it's like a vulcano. Hard brown soil made of rock, all over, nothing else. i colud see the land skape around me thanks to the light on my hat bought jusr few meters before to understaind what i was doing and, most of all, to remember.
After a while, it was midnight. Me and my boyfriend stopped to have a rest for few minutes. I sat down on (guess where..?) a big brown rock...drank a sip of sportsdrinik and i turned my had on the way me walked trhough. I couldn't believe to my eyes..tousand of others tourist where behind us foe the same porpouse!All togehter, wiht thoise tiny lights, walking and singing in the middle of the nicht on the way to the TOP! i din't say anything, just twinkled to my boyfriend then went back to our mission. He was terribly tired and i didn't blame him! we walked silently for anothe hour and half without saying anything..everytime i left his hand to reach my backpack he took it back and take what i needed because scared i might lose the concentration and slide down the road. We walked always togher like that..
the moon started to get bigger and bigger..was almost "there" where we thought will be the TOP of the great mountain. The road seemed neverending. At 3.30 everyone was exausted and it cold..
We reached the TOp at 4.00 o'clock in the morning and the price for what we did was an amazing sunrise coming up from the hearth, overcrossing hills then the clouds..the sunrise became the sun while we were heading back to the real world from the Top of the FUji..

on top... remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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a japanese beach

2005-08-08T15:46:03Z

yes...i decided to dedicate a day to the sun tain,
i needed to feel some sun on my skin after the long and col japanese winter, i really started to feel sick for the lack pf sunshine. So i plannesd my day trip to the closest beach. I`m in Nagoya noa, living with my boyfriend, that means that i left the caotic and multinational city of tokyo and headed towards the fourth biggest city of japan, Nagoya indeed.
I went to Shinmaiko, the closest seaside to the city. I took the MEitestsu line and i reached the beach 40 min later. This area is not that big and the water isn`t tath clear..let me tell you that i refused to put mi feey in for the scary color of the water. But the envirnment was, and still is, very nice, with music, small bars and alot of young people. As many ot\f the european, american and australian`s girls, the suntain is part of a beauty treatment that in summer is almost a MUST to have a perfect browny skin. To reach the PERFECT result it takes at least 1 week and during that time a girl put herself under the sunshine for 3/4 hours per day, turning on her back every 30 min and trying to avoid, as less as possible, the terrible shadow of the swimm wear that cam give some problem for the final results. For this reason exist very small (very small) swimmwerar, made of nothing that allow a girl to have the same tained color all over the body. TGhe top less is another way but it is much better to don`t considere it in japan. So, as many of you might know,i come from italy and Italy ois a country where on the beach, as long as you`re naked, it`s fine or anyway, no one makes any problem for how a girl looks like wiht a swimmwear.
I was lay down on my stomac and i opened the string of the top pf the bikini just to be sure to don`t find any weird sign of it once at home..my god..i`ll never do it again. People strted to looked at me as a kid looks at the chocolate..like lions read to attack. But there wasn`t much of attack,actually no one tried to talk to me or asking the telephone number, as sometimes happend on the beach..
the stared at me, i felt bad, embarassed and..sad, i almost cried.
then a guy came to me and told me : "it`s better if you close your bikini..some one can asking you for a job..take care please, it`s dangerous.." then he left.
i didn`t know what to say or whta to think. Used as i am to western country where girls go around in topless or with tiny tanga, even when there are families around, now i was very surprised. My idea of japan was very different about this point of view..i mean, yhis country has the most reach trad of pornpography in the world, school girls used to wear the famous sexi uniform that drive men crazy at every corner of the world, any manga you can buy contains pornography with half naked character with child`s faces..and now because aforeigner girl is liying on her stomach with the back side of the bikini opened (that means without showing the breast) to take a little of tain on her back, can be confused as a prostitute??
that is very very sick. I had to leave the beach scared of the men around me, walking fast towards the train station without thinking how people have the lack of common sense and with no idea of the rest of the world.
i really hope this country will wake up soon other wise the lighthouse of a great turism here will collapse as a sand castle..

a japanese beach remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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the ramen shop...

2005-08-01T01:36:41Z

hi, everyone,my japanese skills now are getting better and better and i hope you huys are proud of me!
the school is very hard but now i can read some of the manga i bought and, most of all the restaurant`s neon signs!!
me and my classmates decided to do to eat out all together last night, evryone was agree even beacuse it `m nmore simple to get in to a restaurant and poin at the menu than get in to the supermarket and spend 30min just to find out wich is the expiring date written on the milk box...
anyway,we met at Shibuya, one of the main areas of tokyo, and the first step was to decide where to go to eat and WHAT!
now, the main problem when you`re in japan attending a japanese language school, the othet memebers are from those countries that sometimes it`s even easy to don`t know the geographic position...guys from corean, tibet, mongolia nepal and china..no one could speak english and the conversation was ( and still is) just in japanse and i can assure that is not easy at all..but very interesting !
the place selected aflter a long long discussion made of "haa..mmhhh2, "hey, how is in japanese ...", "I know i know, YES in japanese might be.." and so going on, was a small restaurant out from the touristic sight, placed in a tiny tiny road "created" from the space ao two HUGE skyscraper..i felt as a lilliputian infront of gulliver`s shoes..
we chose that place beacuse students abroad don`t classified themself as Turist and according to that, you have to behave as a real japanese, going in the same place where japanese people go, eat the same thing....
the restaurant was terrible.
it stank, there was just a salary man already drunk, tring to speak wiht the soy sauce bottle infront of him..it wasn`t the best of the place but with the philosophy "hey, i`m hungry this place is REAL JAPN let`s get in..." we got in.
the weiter (there was even the weiter!) gave us the menu totally written in japanese and with no picutre to point at..
after along silence where the menu passed from hand to hand, the weiter came and asked something that sounded like "what di you want to eat?". All of us went for the same thing..unvelivable..the cook was going to cook TEN dishes of the same food..
the weiter stared at us for a while and then to the cook..speechless.
We felt proud of our first step in the "lesson number two, at the restaurant"..but evryone was so scared about what could happend after that. I have to admit, i was ready even to see a smoked rat in soy sauce and sushi...instead arrived this big soup wiht noodle and beef inside,erbs and spicy taste. If there`s some itlain who`s reading now, it was like SPAGHETTI IN BRODO A NATALE...
i liked and i found out how terrible can be for your stomach if you drink, instead of the beer, the sake wich is, usually, drank after the meal. We came back home drank. the day after at school i saw the most scary face of my life. The faces were red, the eyes half closed and all of us couldn`t move much otherwise we had to rush to the toilet..at each break after 50minutes of lesson, we reachd the roof to take some air and a dark coffe...the breaks are 4 and frm the second people started to desapper heading to go back home.
hte mission was accomplished.
bye
ale

the ramen shop... remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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the japanes course started

2005-07-28T02:43:40Z

i always hated going to school instead when my japanese course started in tokyo, i was very happy!
the morning starts at 7 am to catch the train at 7.56. noe the japanese train, as evryone knows, are crowdy, very crowdy. i mean is impossible to breath and to move, you don`t need to handle somewhere, the people around you keep your body motionless.
anyway, the train arrives at the station at 8.45, then i decided to have a walk across the Kabuki-cho, the redlights area of tokyo. At night that place is full of averykind of clubbing, streapers, pachinco (a game very close to flipper, or sometithing similar). The lighs make the night become day, you don`t feel the time passing. Girls in school uniform walk around and salarymen with glasses run behind them towards the love hotel..
in the morning the landskape is totally different...those salarymen, plenty of sexskills the night before,now lay on the street, alone, with hte head through the automatic doors of the pachinko`s places..very strange.
i arrived at my first day of school 5 min before, had a seat in a nice classroom, with carpet and beautiful chairs, like the one you usually find in the principal`s office in your high school
the other classmates start to arrive..a couple of chinese, two coreans girls,an italian guy a french,colombian an\d one american guy. The italian, marco, is a photographer which came in japan to follow the girl friend, the french guy,nicolas,left hong kong where lives with his wife, to come to study japanese...the american guy was similar to Mr. Burns, of "the simpson"!really, exactly the same face and the same tall and skynny body, even the nose was the same!

then the teacher came in..this girl "bitchy-chan",as we used to call her, wasn`t (according with the name) the best of the teache..yeallow teeth always showed wiht a large smile, a voice very similar to the one you can hear infront of the shop on the sale-day, and this terrible personality! like those girls that want to teach to have a minimum of power on someone..
thanks god, the other teacher, a guy, was great. Saito-san, used to have twi jobs, when he doesn`t teach he`s a plummer..amazing!
after 50 min of lesson we had the first break. Whent on the roof for a cofee, we met the others schoolmates..Paul, Andrea, Luc,Bernard and many others! and it was funny to see how adult people as we are, can come to school with another spirit comparing wiht the high schools time! i was happy to go to school and learn japanese,then i realized that just few of the other people were really interested in the language as a personal passion. As Marco, the photografer which followed the girlfriend, there was a lot of guys in the smae situation!!Paul came to japan for his partner jeff, Andrea because his wife is japanese and many may others just for work!

study abroad has been a great experience of Human Sociology!!
bye guys
ale

the japanes course started remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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second day

2005-07-27T11:43:41Z

the day after i met jo, the australian flatmate which will became the great friend he is.
we had an italian coffee, just to start the day in a nice way...
i knew that after one week my japanese course will start and i wanted to be a tourist before sank on the japanese life!
after studied the subway (is a real study, if you get lost in the tokyo`s subway could be a serious problem), i took my bag, set my misic,placebo, jeff buckely, muse,cake..i pressed play and the pearl jam started to sing..
to go to the station it was a nice walk, almost ten min walkin, but just eight if you walk trough the graveyard..is very different from the normal idea of cemetery..is like a park, open twentyfour hours, wiht people doing jogging in, walking dogs, reading books and light up incense of the tomb while, wiht the rest of the family, they`re having a picnic..amazing.
i took the train and i went straight to the imperial palace in the hearth of tokyo.
i`ve been studying japanese history in hte last 4 years, for personale pleasure or for university. I know almost everything about that:emperors, shogun, wars and battles but, from your desk in the opposite side of the world is a totally different feelings.
just infront hte main entrance of the castle, there`s a huge, huge, huge square,full of small white stones. is impossible to see the castle from the outside because the high trees where it`s hide in, for the walls and for the torrente floating all around.
"doughter" in my ears was the only sound comining. It seemed that the time never moved from thwthousands years ago..it didn`t matter of the cars running just infront of it or the subway rushing under my feet..that place is never been touched from the stream of the historical events..it was like the palace was lying on a leave,peacefully and annything seemd to disturb His quiet, never in centuries!
i came from a country full of history at every corner, my city, rome, his an aliving history book, but in such way She changed her "shape"..it became part of the normal life and everyone there seems to have missed what happend n the last three thousands years!
here was different. the Castle was still there, without no power,surrended to the political choices and to the epire,the same one that once kneeld infront of his look, but you can still feel the grat authority and breath the energy his briks have.
sorry if i`m being melodrammatic, but it`s exactly what i felt there.

i came back home with a bottle of wine to drink with jo and breandan. we talked about eachother`s life, laughd...then the joint started to have effect , isaid "good night guys, see you tomorrow"
...and so to everybody now...goodnight
ale

second day remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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japan`s floating

2005-07-26T01:39:22Z

hi everybody,
i don`t know how tis adventure started but now i`m here, far form my italian country and from my worldwide friends.
i came to japan when i was 17 years old with my mother. it was love at the first sight..
the Lights of Shinijuku, yes it seems the title of a movie but is the first thing that came straight to my head! A cold night, if i remember, but those lights warmed me up.
it begun like that, walking trough the touristic and noisy streets of tokyo, was like being part of a Playstation`s game!walking into a river of people ehre you can`t stops without be sank in! it seems stupid but, it meant a lot to me. People, never seen that many people all together, neither at the Madonna`s concert...it was scary, everybody sharing the same air,the same sky and the same sunset light. it impressed me a lot, even now,id\f i think to my first step out of the hotel, i can feel how my own operson was totally melted with the others.
i promised to my self that i`ll study japanese and move there as soon as i finished my univ.
And so it was. i left rome on october of the last year, hgalf way through the univerity. I just needed a break, just to go and "see what`s going on down there". I just...left everything. I was 22 years old (now i`m 23) when i step into Narita AIrport. I was tired for the jetlag, but to excited to have a rest. No one came to pick me up, even because i didn`t know anyone at that time, and after i realized this,i had a shiver down my back and i start to...walk.
No language skills, no confidence with subways, no confidence with..anything.
From Italy I booked a room in an appartament to share with 2 flatmates in Kodaira, an area north-east of Tokyo, gust outside the city, you know, just to safe money.
I still don`t know how i reached that place..once i get there i met Brendan, one of hte two guys. He gave me a cup of tea, showed me how the house worked (waehing machine, hoven, and rubbish) then he left. I was alne, no telephone, no idea where i was, i missed my mother as never in my life. Really, it was panic, real panic. I just didn`t know what was going on and what was going to happend next..
i got in my room, opened my luggages, try to don`t think to take a taxi to the airport and go back home!
It was hard, very hard. I had a shower and, talking to myself, i decided to keep dancing.. i was in the dancing floor and keep dancing was my decision. my first step was reached. I did everything alone, the house and the school`s starting the week aflter..that`s it.
i sat on my futon, the jaglag came back straight to my muscles. i lied down,the homesick slowly went away, i close my eyes and a tear came out with a smile. "u`ll be fine.." said my mother from far away.

japan`s floating remains copyright of the author andina, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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