August 23, 2009: Hakodate: ほしのまち (Star town), my home town in Japan.

I didn’t really have a chance to use the internet before I went, and when I had the one chance to use the internet, I completely forgot to email them because I had so much to do. I didn’t even call. I decided to surprise them. This got me really excited. I couldn’t wait to go back to a familiar place and see friendly, familiar faces. Taking the earliest train at around 6:48, I got to Hakodate before 1pm. I got on the tram, walked into my host family’s house, walked in while they were eating lunch and loudly said, “tadaima” (I’m home)! My host mother, grandmother, father, and mother’s sister all turned to look at me with surprised faces and responded with “okaeri” (welcome home). I hadn’t eaten anything that morning except for a grapefruit and so I was starving. I wolfed down a few pieces of toast with butter and the jam I brought from the organic farm in Nakafurano and a banana.

My tickets for the next day had an error and so my host dad drove me back to the station to fix it. My host family knows I like onsens, so we went to the nearby onsen. I especially like jumping into the hottest onsen, then the freezing cold one, then back in the hot one, and on and on. As usual, I was the last to get out of the onsen. Then they took me to a kaiten sushi place. I don’t think we have this in NYC at all, and probably not in America. Kaiten sushi is a sushi place where sushi is rotated around on plates of 2 pieces on conveyor belts that encircle the entire restaurant. You can order sushi or just grab whatever you want from the conveyor belt. After the onsen, I was starving. I couldn’t stop staring at the conveyor belt and the limitless possibilities that passed by before my eyes. I ate so much. Everything from salmon, to yellow eel, raw shrimp, tempura shrimp, ikura (big fish eggs), raw scallops, and other fish I had no clue of the name. It was so delicious. I got so full, I felt like I couldn’t walk and it would come out of my eyes. When we got back home, I used the internet to call my grandmother thru skype. I didn’t call her in 2.5 weeks and didn’t tell her any of my plans. As I was about to call, she called my host family’s house phone. I didn’t even tell her I was in Hakodate, how did she know I would be here? Turns out she didn’t know, but wanted to know whether I got my Japan Rail Pass (which you pay $283+fees=$320 to use all Shinkansen’s and JR trains unlimitedly) which she mailed to my host family and in turn they mailed to Nakafurano. Good timing. I already started using it that day to get to Hakodate.

Tomorrow I’m going from Hokkaido to Kyushu, all the way from the North to the South. It’s going to take me 12 long hours.