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Tokanso Hotel: Waking of the Shogun
Sleeping early the night before apparently did little for my fatigued corpse as I still found myself dragging myself out of my little traditional floor-mattress when awoken by the Chinaman. A morning walk-through the little garden that the backdoor of our room opened into presented me with a scene of peace and tranquility, only found in rural areas away from the claws of modernism. Birds chirping, grass rustling in the morning breeze, sunlight seeping in through the tree branches; the scene looked like it was straight out of Snow-white, all we needed was the opera-shrieking soundtrack.
Shogun in the Garden
Never has the Yukata looked SO Sexy
The hardcore Onsen fan in me had me sitting in the Onsen all alone first thing in the morning, as I relished the final hot bath to be had for a long time before heading back to the room to see the breakfast already nicely laid out on the table. The sheer variety and the quality of the spread was on par with the scrumptious dinner the night before, further solidifying a Vampiric Recommendation and reinforcing the value of the hefty price-tag paid for the stay.
Final shopping in the make-shift store at the centre of the lobby had me buying a key chain of the 3 Nikko monkeys, in hope of performing some voodoo on the little bastards who robbed me of my strawberries the day before. A boarding up the bus and a 2.5-hour train ride back to the metropolis marked the abdication of my vampiric rule as Shogun as I saw the beautiful landscape that I had given up rule over.
The Land that I Lost
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Ginza: The Prodigal Son
Arrival back at the Metropolitan capital had the Tripartite parting ways again to tie-up our last-minute loose ends. The Chinaman's quest was to purchase the Kendo stuff that he had failed to do previously; Bob wanted to take a look around Tokyo Station, where all the major subway lines interlocked; while I decided to head down to Ginza, to visit the exclusive Burberry's boutique to pick up a Japan-exclusive Blue Label for my mother. Burberry's Blue Label is a sub-brand of Burberry's that is exclusive to Japan and aims for a more casual (read:lower-priced) market than its normal black label cousin. Yes, I am a filial son despite the HUGE argument I got into with her to get her to lend me the funds to stand on the soil that I was on.
The stubborn mule in me had me using blind navigation to get to the store once I had alighted at the Ginza station. But the filial heart had a stake cleanly driven through it the moment I reached the store to find some ridiculously insane price-tags. So much for filial piety I guess, the reality of materialism still overrules it at the end of the day. Determined not to let my 1.5-hour solo flight go to waste, I wandered into the same Toy store again to pick up more trinkets before heading back to Asakusa.
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Asakusa: 45 minutes too Late
Taking up Bernard's suggestion of picking up souvenirs from the streets along Asakusa Temple. A wall-scroll for the Father, figurine for the Mother and trinkets for the babes who would kill me if I returned empty-handed; I did all my souvenir shopping in 20 minutes before rushing back to the meeting place only to see Zombie Bob already there. The Chinaman was nowhere in sight as I repacked all my luggage and divided them for flight purposes. Even after which, the Chinaman was still nowhere in sight. Starting to worry, Zombie Bob proposed, "Tell you what, if Zhenfeng doesn't appear by 3.45, I give you the ticket and you go off first." Aww, the spirit of camaderie and friendship is a beautiful thing isn't it?
45 minutes later, the Chinaman's rear silhouette finally ascended from the escalators, carrying 2 huge paper bags. I'd bet the stupid fool got TOO absorbed in his Gundam that he totally screwed the timing. Funny man, scrimping on whatever he could over the last 12 days just so that he could buy 2 Gundam models.
Wasting no time, we rushed to the station and opted to take the rather comfortable Skyliner to head towards Narita airport.
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Narita Airport: The Departed
The 1-hour Skyliner ride was comfortable to say the least, as we were at the airport before I even really fell asleep. Decided to take a photo of the other parts of the Tripartite. These were the two people I had spent the last few days with, through good times and bad, through laughter and tears (ok, no tears, but a little conflict); I can only say that I was glad that I had some form of company (yes, even Bob, at least for the last 2 days) with me for probably what was the best trip of my life. It was good to share all those funny moments with the Chinaman, to have a companion to talk to and discuss about the buildings, the sights the sounds, the chics; and it was good to have Bob to... well... uh... play navigator (even though there was at least one time I was quite sure a few of us wanted to strangle him). Either way, thank you to the both of you for the memories shared.
Bob and the Chinaman
The airport provided the final haven for last minute shopping, as I loaded on the food stuff using the last of my yen. Tokyo Banana, Seafood rice-crackers, 3 different flavours of Mousse Pocky, Cheesecakes, a Japanese brand handbag and a T-shirt were the last avenues of my expenditure before the 7-hour flight back.
Sin Harvest
The flight back was a lot more full than the flight there, so that meant that we all had to keep to our designated seats unlike the flight there. The plane taking off into the sunset-sky was an accurate depiction of the closing of one chapter in my life.
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Penny for my Thoughts: Reflections
The graduation trip marked the end of the academic chapter in my life. I had to be prepared to usher in the 5-day work week in contrast to the 3-day week that I had been spoiled with for the majority of the last 4 years. No more 3-month long summer vacations, as I had to brace myself for only 14 days of rest a year. A setting for new friendships and maybe politics were to be expected, as I would struggle to keep the ties with the existing friends afloat. But the most important thing had to be taking the big step into being classified as a fully-grown adult, as I was about to cut off the apron strings and walk into financial independence, after a gruelling 25-years of having my pocket money at the mercy of my mother's whim and fancy.
7-hours is a long time as it gave me more than enough time to think about the experience I had in Japan. Firstly, BEST.TRIP.EVER period. The scenery: breathtaking, the food: superb, the chics: sizzling.... makes me wanna migrate there. The entire trip gave me a deeper insight into the Japanese culture and Japanese people; something that I probably couldn't appreciate or understand the last time I was there when I was 3, and the only thing that I cared about was why was Mickey Mouse speaking Japanese.
Secondly, was the company. Like what I said on Day 7, I was glad to have the company that I had on this trip; probably no other group was more apt to celebrate a graduation trip with, and I can safely say that I gained a deeper understanding and built a stronger relationship with each and everyone of them during the trip (though what happened after is a slightly different story). The 2 people that I had grown closest to from the trip were definitely Sujun and the Chinaman.
I was glad that the trip was structured the way it was structured. While the tour put me on auto-pilot mode most of the time, it allowed us to see the more crucial sight-seeing spots of the cities we visited. In other words, it took us to the more commercial places that give you touristic credibility for visiting Japan. The extension on the other hand, was a totally different chapter.
It taught me a lot of things, the most important of which is independence. The independence of having to read up, do your research, figuring out where to go and how to get there, planning accommodation and all, and even more so, the independence of travelling alone and self-navigating. It had always been at the back of my mind that I would wanna travel the world someday, backpacking across different parts of the globe. But somehow, in my melancholic picture of freedom, I only saw 1 figure in that image, me. For some reason, I never saw myself really travelling with anyone else, and just being totally comfortable with myself.
This trip, with the backpacker's hostel, self-navigation and (especially) going solo, only served as a meaningful personal prelude of the things that await me in future travels. The sense of adventure, the wide-eyed amazement, the observations of the culture and the architecture, the way of life of the locals, and most importantly, the satisfaction of the experience of travelling. I was glad that I had extended as it really presented to be a totally different dimension of Japan, and more importantly, travelling in general. It left confidence and inspiration lingering in my soul as I set myself the person goal of trying to travel twice a year..
In the end, the bottom-line of the entire experience has to be that: Travelling is a Passion. One that is almost comparable to gaming for me, and for those who know me, they will know that passion to me is a strong word, one strong enough to stir my soul.
Closure
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