Mie day 1

Mie day 1

This is my trip to Mie prefecture to visit my old buddy fumika from FIT. Mie is 7 hrs away from tokyo by bus. I took an overnight bus. it was 35$. it was a normal bus with normal seats but i got a deluxe seat bus ride back so lets see how that is. Yuri is also from Mie, they went to the same highschool. they had to ride their bikes for 30 minutes each way to get to this school which they choose to do cuz it had a special english program, even in the rain and snow. what dedication.

the first difference you see is that all these people in red are smiling and there to help you find your bus and update you via bullhorn every 2 minutes of the status of various buses. not like greyhound where they dont care and you never know whats going on with your bus. i have ridden with greyhound many many many times and its always such an unpleasant experience. this time it wasn't so bad

japanese people are not immune to bad taste. but at least this guy is one point high on the douche bag scale because at least transformers is a creation from his country.

the bust stopped at a rest stop but inside is not your regular beef jerky and pringles fare, it was a mysteriously new land.

these delicous looking wafers were inside and looked like they were definitely miyage

again japanese are not immune to bad taste. here is a girl in full rocawear velour

smokers style smoking section of the sidewalk

while i was waiting for fumika to get out of work at 10:30 am i realized taht all the people meeting each other at this meeting spot were housewives and grandmas. i guess cuz they dont have to work their husbands do.

i stumbled upon a fish market in nagoya where fumika works. nagoya is the 3rd biggest city in japan but i couldnt tell cuz it was 7am and nothing was open accept for this. first time i've seen tuna being cut up.

looks like various fermented stuff and various miso pastes

owl darumas

at heizu station only its been mispelled hei du station for so long fumika says. the car is only 2 cars long. she is from a super small town.

here it is, small town japan. and fumika the lil' fella

these wings are famous nagoya food

calendar in her bathroom. awesome. these are originally children's book images.

her mom loves oden-kun, who is deep fried bean curd with mochi inside tied up like a little bag of gold, he is part of the crew of foods that are cooked all day inside the oden pots along with fishcakes, eggs, and other various soft and super delicious things. its awesome that her mom likes these characters and that cartoons and animation are part of the japanese culture, so when i went down stairs her mom was watching "crayon shin chan" an anime that has found a small following in the US.