#and then supper was a business expense and the hotel is paid for by moms points | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

willddheartt · 4 years

Text

Just Another Shade Of Blue | JJ Maybank

Summary: You’re a kook, and somehow, you’ve become friends with the infamous Kook hater, JJ Maybank. For summer break your father is letting you take a trip anywhere, with whoever you’d like for a few days, as a “I’m sorry your mom and I are divorcing, but please love me” present. Who else would you take other than the one person who you think could use a little vacation from the outer banks?

Inspired By: If They Only Knew - Alfie Arcuri & Bittersweet - musicbyblanks

Warnings: angst(?)

Word Count: 3.3k

A/N: This was supposed to be a Rudy imagine/fic/one shot but I find it incredibly hard to write for real people so I changed it to JJ. I hope the ones who asked to be tagged in the Rudy one don’t mind the substitution but I was working on it for too long and nothing was working out how I would have liked so here we are with the same concept but inspired by a different song. This turned out way longer than I expected.

Masterlist

Tag List: @afterglowsb-tch13 @n1ghtsh4d3-67 @hucklebaefinn @milamaybank @marianas-studyblr

The last few months were not easy for you. Your parents had finally been filing for the divorce they threatened for many years, but that in now way made the fighting stop, if anything it made it far worse. Almost every night for the last month both your mother and father ended up in a screaming match downstairs over something small and insignificant. At first it was what college you were going to, then where you were going to live, and the cherry on top, how they weren't trying to control your life. Even though that was completely true.

Tonight was no different. Your mother was screaming at your father about how you should not be allowed to go off to a completely different country alone without a parent. You knew the trip was only even mentioned because your father wanted you to stay with him once the devorce was finalized, which you had no problem with but if you were getting a free trip, to wherever you wanted in the world, with all expenses paid and spending money, you weren't going to turn it down.

Although your father got lucky with investing into some real estate company and you now had more money than you knew what to do with, You had never been one for the Kook lifestyle. The thought of getting into places just because you had money was never appealing, and the thought of hanging around shallow rich people was something that sounded like the lowest ring of hell to you. You found comfort and friendship within the small family of Pogues. They didn’t seem to care about your social status, as long as you were there for them, they were there for you. Like tonight.

You’ve had enough of the screaming coming from downstairs, after climbing out of your second floor window you made your way to the lake house you have spent many nights at. The chateau was on the other side of the island but the walk was better than listening to your parents for god knows how long, they could go on for hours. The house was dark, no lights were on except for the one outside above the front door, it was light with a dim amber glow that helped guide you up the few stairs. You let yourself in, not bothering to knock seeing as the brunette who inhabited the home was probably well asleep by now. You weren’t surprised when you saw JJ sitting on the couch, he stayed with John B a lot, but you were surprised to see he still seemed wide awake.

“Hey,” You sighed, walking into the living room “What are you doing here, it's late?” The blonde asked, getting straight to the point. “Fighting again,” You shrugged, sitting on the couch next to the tired looking boy. “Divorce stuff or different shit?” “Kook stuff,” You shrugged, knowing he probably didn’t want to hear it seeing as how he couldn’t wrap his head around how people could have so much money and still have problems. “Shoot,” He said, surprising you.

With your eyebrows raised and eyes wide you turned to him, “Really?” The blonde shrugged, “Why not, got nothing better to do,” You nodded, “Dad said I could go anywhere I wanted for three days, all expenses paid and he’d give me however much money I wanted to spend on shit, as his way of saying ‘I love you please stay with me once the devorce is over’ and mom’s mad because she doesn’t think I should go to another country alone,” You sighed, crossing your arms once you had finished explaining. “Kook stuff,” You repeated. “Wow, you’re right. Kook Shit,” JJ chuckled You nodded, “I told you,” You thought the boy was just going to shrug it off, and move on because it was after all, kook shit, but he surprised you with what he said next. “You said she’s mad because she doesn't want you going alone, right?” the blonde asked “Yeah, pissed,” You nodded “Why don’t you take someone with you, I mean by the sounds of it your dad is going to give you whatever you want until the divorce is done,” The boy shrugged, “I’d take advantage if that if I were you,”

You thought about what he was saying for a second. In the first offer from your dad, he did mention you could take a friend, any friend, he didn’t say they had to be of the female gender. An idea popped into your head, one that was surely to piss off your mother further. “Do you want to come with me?” You asked, catching JJ off guard “What? I don’t have the money for that,” He said “All expenses paid,” You said, “Dad said I could take anyone I wanted, so i'm asking you,”

JJ continued to shake his head and give you the normal spew of excuses, you'd heard them a thousand times when you asked him to come over or stay the night, even if it was your dad asking him to stay for supper. But this time, you weren't taking no for an answer. “No, I'm not giving up until you say yes. Will you, JJ Maybank, accompany me in an all expenses paid trip to Paris, France?” You asked, flashing your best attempt at puppy dog eyes, the same ones that had worked on your parents so many times before, the same ones that had been used to get you and your friends out of heaps of trouble in the past. The blonde boy held eye contact with you for a few seconds before looking away and shaking his head at you, “Fine, fine, I’ll go with you,” He sighed in defeat, chuckling. You grinned, “Yay, we leave Thursday, 5:00am,” “Five am?” JJ said, shocked, “That's so early,” “So?” You shrugged, “Stay over Wednesday, it will save us time and will make sure you're there.” “Fine, alright. It looks like I’m going to Paris with you,” He smiled slightly. You grinned, “I cannot wait,”

JJ had never been on a plane before, flying and airports were a new thing for him. When the plane started to take off he looked terrified, but nothing compared to the way his eyes shot open when you hit your first patch of turbulence. It was comical for you, as much as you tried to calm him down you couldn’t hold back your laughter to do so. But the boy had no shortage of sarcastic comebacks. Your flight landed at 1:00 PM, giving you time to settle back onto the ground before dinner. JJ seemed relieved when the plane’s wheels finally touched down onto the cement of the runway.

The two of you were sharing a hotel room. The room only had one decent sized bed. At the time of booking the room your father assumed you’d be bringing along a female friend, so there would be no issue in sharing a bed. You and JJ stood in the doorway looking at the one bed, saying that it would be alright but in all honesty neither of you have shared a bed together before and this was going to be something new. Even in the Chateau, you never bunked together in the spare room, or even at your house, he always bunked on the pull out couch in the corner.

By the time you were fully settled into the surroundings you’d been starving from the journey, the hotel was surviving dinner but it didn’t look like something either of you wanted to try and so the search for something more american was in way. You walked down the busy Paris street, your arm linked with JJ’s to ensure you wouldn’t get lost, as you looked for any kind of burger joint restaurant. Your camera hung around your neck alerting everyone you were tourists, but that wasn’t the only dead give away. You were in no big rush to find a place to eat even though you were hungry, you both seemed to forget about that once you stepped foot out of the hotel. The old buildings and beautifully detailed architecture work caught your attention as the setting sun flashed golden rays upon the bricks that built up the city, leaving a golden hue hanging in the air to engulf you. It was summer in Paris and it had been everything you’d imagined it could be. It was beautiful and warm and it felt like the rest of the world didn’t exist as you walked down the street with the Pogue, you were finally in a place where nobody focused on your social titles such as Kook or Pogue, you could just be.

After dinner as the two of you were walking through the winding streets that were lit by amber glowing street lights, it felt like it was just the two of you in the world. Like whatever life back home didn’t matter. There were groups of teens scattering the streets, laughing and messing around with their friends. It felt like everything in the night was infinite, like you didn’t have to worry about tomorrow because everything was going to stay exactly how it was. You only had one full day in Paris, your flight to go back home leaves on Sunday, but you were going to make the most of it with the blonde boy who was accompanying you.

“So?” You asked as you walked down the cobblestone path holding JJ’s hand, “What do you think?” His eyes were glittered with yellow and orange reflections from the lights as you looked at him, he was in awe of the beautiful city, “Its- wow. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He sighed, with a small smile. “I’ve always wanted to come here since I was a kid. I thought I could have a romance like in the movies but I ended up falling in love with the city,” You sighed, a content smile came to rest upon your lips. “A romance like the movies?” JJ turned to you with a teasing smirk. “Hey,” You playfully hit his shoulder. “It's beautiful, alright.” “I never took you for that kind of person,” He shrugged You nodded, “I know, I don't mention or even pursue it. Somethings feel best left unsaid, because then they cant fall apart on you,” “If you never try to find it you’ll never know if it had the chance to fall apart,” he pointed out “Maybe that's for the best,” You shrugged, leaning out over the side of the bridge to get a photo from one of the canals. Although you felt like that conversation was far from over, JJ dropped it for the moment being.

The city was even more beautiful in the day but you did really prefer it at night. You dragged JJ out of bed bright and early to go sightseeing. You spent the day walking around the historic city, wandering through the winding streets, looking through small shops as well as paying a very thorough visit to the street lined with tourist vendors. The line for Notre-Dame was long but so worth it. Inside the beautiful gothic cathedral was huge stained glass windows that sent colourful patterns onto the floor. It was packed, you followed the direction of the crowd but clung onto JJ’s arm so you didn’t lose him, something that you have become accustomed to in the last 24 hours. It was dim inside but there was still enough light to see where you were going, and be able to make out the beautiful stone work on the inside of the cathedral. As you were coming back around to the exit, security began pushing people aside, clearing the way and holding you back with a red velvet rope. At first when you were grabbed by the shoulders and pulled away from JJ you thought you were being thrown out for something but quickly you came to realize what was happening and you were able to get back over to the other side of the cleared path to JJ’s side again. Your heartbeat in your throat as you took a breath. “Jesus christ, that scared the shit outta me” You sighed once you were able to continue walking The boy you clung to once again nodded. “Me too, I thought we were getting thrown out,” He chuckled

As the sun was setting you took one last tour around the tourist shops, making your last purchases before heading off to the eiffel tower. Thankfully you purchased your tickets earlier in the day and you didn’t have to wait in the winding line up. You and JJ walked through, flashing your tickets to the workers and to the elevator operator. Once everyone piled out one side you were allowed on. You were pressed up against the very back of the elevator. Inside the metal cart that was hauling you up the tower was small, it couldn't have been anymore than 4’x4’ but it felt like almost 50 people squeezed in, all eager to overlook the city and see all the twinkling lights from above. Once you came to the first stop JJ pulled you off with him. Slowly you made your way around, looking out over the city and snapping a few photos from 187 feet up. The streets and lights were still very much visible, you could still see the people walking on the sidewalks. Without wasting any more time you got inline for the elevator going to the very top. If you thought you were squashed before, you didn’t even know what to call it this time. It felt like the ride to the very top took far longer than the one to the first level. You were pressed into the corner, with JJ mostly in front of you. Both doors opened this time, you were able to slip out the back doors that you were pressed into on the way up, and finally you got to look out over the city. It looked almost magical, like you had entered another dimension from the slow moving elevator.

Everything on the ground, 906 feet below you, faded away into a small dot. The people weren’t even visible, only the lights from the moving cars alerted you there were still people down there. Quickly you snapped a few shots of the city scape below you that was lit with amber glowing lights, before turning your camera and pointing it was the blonde boy who was standing next to you. He was looking out over the city, he may have been in awe the first time seeing how the city came to life at night but right now, when he looked back to you, his eyes held an emotion you hadn’t seen from him before, it was something unreadable. Something intriguing. “Beautiful, isn't it?” You asked, putting your camera away in your bag, deciding you were going to live in the moment for the rest of the night. JJ nodded, “Gorgeous, I can’t believe I'm actually here.” He was impressed.

As you walked around the very top you witnessed multiple couples doing the very romantic kiss from the top of the Eiffel Tower, while a generous bystander took their phone or camera and snapped a couple of photos from them. You looked at JJ after witnessing yet another couple kiss, he looked back at you, it was like you both wanted to say something but were too afraid to speak until JJ cleared his throat. “Would you like to pursue a scene straight out of your movie romance dream?” JJ asked with his famous smirk, his blue eyes light up with the faint twinkling of the outside lights on the tower. Your words almost got stuck in your throat, out of all things that was something you had not expected him to ask, nevertheless, you nodded. “I would be honoured,” You smiled. You both handed your phones off to two different people, asking one to video and the other to snap photo bursts. You stood with you back to the railing of the tower and JJ held you by your hips, one hand quickly coming up to cup your jaw as he leant in, connecting your lips together in a soft yet deep kiss. Your hands instinctively linked at the back of his neck, and you pulled him back in for one more quick peck before letting him pull away completely.

There was no lie in the world that could hide how you felt right now. Your lips tingled, and your stomach filled with butterflies and you could swear you saw fireworks. It was like every movie romance ever. People around you clapped like they did for everyone, assuming you were together.

Getting down from the tower was not as easy as getting up, the demand to be taken back down from the tower was huge, the lines winded around almost too far and you could almost argue that as soon as you stepped off the elevator from coming up you would be joining the line to go down.

It took way too long to get down but even with the clock reading 12:30 AM, you weren't tired. Far from it actually. You didn’t know if it was from the kiss or if it was because you didn’t want the night to end. But you and JJ found yourselves running through the emptying streets as the early hours of the morning approached. The two of you laughing like you had no cares in the world, because as you were walking through the empty streets, it truly felt like it was just the two of you in the world. It was just the two of you and that city on earth.

You were pulled down onto the blondes lap when he sat down on a park bench. As you admired his flawless tan skin in the moonlight and amber glow from the streetlights, his eyes looked bluer than ever, like what you’d imagine the deepest part of the ocean would look like if you dug deeper. His hand grip around you waist tightened and your hands that sat on his shoulders came up to gently cup his cheeks as you slowly leaned in. Before you knew it he closed the rest of the distance between your lips and you were kissing him, hard. Like he was about to slip away and out of your grasp, like it was a dream and you were desperately trying to cling onto anything that could keep you asleep for longer.

The longer you kissed him the harder his hands gripped your hips, the closer he pulled you. One of your hands held onto his shoulder and the other found home in his hair as you pulled away out of need for oxygen. Your breathing was as heavy as if you two had just gone at it for 20 minutes, but the truth was the kiss didn’t even last a minute. You looked down into his dark blue eyes, in the yellow hue of the Paris lighting and it was like your heart knew this was your movie romance. And like waves on a beach shore, you were falling and crashing hard.

“I’m sorry,” You breathed out immediately, your hand feeling out of his hair. The blue-eyed blonde shook his head “don’t ever be sorry for that,” He pulled you in for another kiss and it was like the universe had exploded all over again. Every nerve ending in your body had been brought to life, you felt every inch of his lips on yours. Out of all the people you were bound to meet in this lifetime, you never expected JJ Maybank to be the one you’d fall for. But as he was kissing you as the two of you sat in a random park, in Paris, everything you thought you knew or ever might know became irrelevant and unimportant, the only thing you knew for sure was that you were in love with the boy you were kissing so hungrily at 3:00 AM. JJ was your tv romance, something that took you awhile to see it but once you did, you fell hard and fast.

132 notes · View notes

kaitlinmcandrews · 7 years

Text

Wow, finally, the time has come! Strap yourself in, this is going to be a long one. I have to cut it into two halves or else it would be like a novel. Now, it’s just have a novel. A short story, if you will.

In August, Patrick’s parents and family friend came to Japan for about a month. Pat’s brother didn’t make it this time, but there was still five of us again. This trip went a lot smoother, in my opinion, than their trip to Korea. To be fair, Japan is a bit more foreigner friendly (the food and culture is not as crazy-different as Korea was) .

Also, I’m not sure how to really explain this… but… uh… I guess since we weren’t going to an island that I know I would never visit again, I felt more okay with being flexible. So, perhaps it was because last time they visited us, we didn’t know how to be tour guides. It could have also been because we knew that we would probably NEVER go to Jeju ever again. Or, it could have been because Jeju was actually much more different from mainland Korea than we thought it would be.

What I’m getting at is that when Pat’s family came to see us in Korea, we had an awesome time, but we also had some hiccups along the way. This time, however, it seemed that our excursions went fairly smoothly?

So, if you can remember, we were working for an Eikaiwa (a Japanese private school) and had limited time off. Actually, during this time, we were preparing to move for our new job in Yokohama. Wow, I’m distracted. Do you care about our schedule? Probably not…. Oh well, sucks to be you, I’m going to talk about it anyway….So, I shall continue. We worked until the day that Pat’s parents came to Japan. We figured that this would be perfect! Actually, we were pretty clever with our yearly vacation days and were able to use them at the tail end of our work period. In other words, we only physically worked for one extra week, but we got paid for an additional 10 days of work. We got basically half of our August pay!

Annoyingly, though, this made things so much more difficult. We had to deal with working and preparing for class for one more week, try to pack for our big move, clean the apartment, and plan our expected activities. Oh well, we had some extra money, and we were able to help the school for a bit longer.

Oh, were you waiting for me to talk about what we did?

Ah.

Sorry.

Ok, well it was awhile ago, so my memory is incredibly fuzzy….. I’ll try my best!

Day 1 – Arrival in Kyoto

So, the McAndrews met us at Kyoto Station. I misunderstood where they were waiting and did a lot of wandering. Kyoto Station is pretty big so it is easy to get lost. Once we met up with them, we walked with them to their hostel. Unfortunately for them, they came in a bit of a busy season (who am I kidding, every day of the year is busy season in Kyoto…) so they had a hard time finding hotels. Luckily, Pat’s mom seems to be a hostel-finding genius haha.

The hostels that they were in for most of their trip were Japanese-style, which essentially means the bedding situation is different that any North American would be used to. In Japan, many people sleep on a futon. BUT! A futon in Japan is not what we call a futon in Canada. In Canada, if you hear futon, you are probably thinking of a fold-down bed. In Japan, a futon is a thin down/cotton mattress on the floor. At home, this is what Pat and I use every night, so we are used to it.

Since we met up with them fairly late, after they checked in, we went out for supper right away. Now, this time, I made a conscious effort not to dictate our food choices or to argue. So, I let them lead the way with their food choices (actually, to be honest, I don’t like Japanese food as much as I like Korean food, so I felt less of a desire to have them try specific foods. In Korea, I was so passionate about their amazing food that I wanted them to try everything…. ). They decided on an Italian place. It was obviously marketed towards foreigners, which is fine, but means the price will be higher. It was. It was quite expensive…. The portion sized were also quite small. The food was good though!

I really can’t remember, but I don’t think we did anything after that…. Maybe we went to a small Irish Pub at Kyoto Station… I don’t remember what day that was. But, I think it was that day. The Olympics were on the TV so of course Pat’s dad had to get updated! They got to see the Japanese side of the Olympics, which, I’m sure is a bit of a different point of view.

Day 2 – Fushimi Inari

Our first official day off from work! Yay~

They had to check out of their hostel and check into a different one, so I think they had a bit of a hectic morning. Gosh, I really can’t remember. Oh well. Well whatever the details were, we ended up at Fushimi Inari eventually haha.

Now, you may know this already, but Fushimi is my favourite place in Kyoto. I love it. It is an easy hike and somehow I never get sick of the tori gates. Never.

August in Japan is so freaking hot, by the way, so although this is an easy hike, we were all sweating like crazy. There are vending machines along the way (weird right?), but the drinks were way over priced. Well, even though I had an entire post dedicated to this place, here are some more photos!

I think I restrained myself this time haha, just because I already have so many photos. The view at the top was quite nice and clear.

Did you miss pictures of Pat and his Dad’s backs?

It was a nice day. It was hot like it was in Jeju, but we didn’t do as much unnecessary walking like we had to in Jeju…

So once we reached the “top”, Pat’s family friend stayed at the covered shelter while the rest of us continued up the mountain a bit. There is a trail that loops around from that spot and back. There isn’t a view or anything, so continuing from that point on isn’t really necessary. The loop doesn’t take too long so when we came back I think it was a good amount of break time for the family friend.

Pat taking in the view~

If you ever go to Kyoto, I really recommend going here. It is just so interesting. It is a fairly easy hike and doesn’t take too long. It is like the perfect way to spend the day.

I made a schedule for our trip, but I don’t think we followed it very closely so I don’t remember what we did after this. I put on my schedule to check out downtown. So… maybe we went downtown? Ugh, I don’t know.

Day 3 – Fireworks festival in Shiga

The next day, we got to go to an annual Fireworks festival in Shiga, Japan. Shiga is right next to Kyoto. It is an area (I don’t think it’s a prefecture, but it definitely isn’t a city… It’s like a region? I suppose) that surrounds Lake Biwa. Biwa Lake is the largest lake in Japan. The fireworks were over the lake so I knew it would be beautiful.

Well, after talking with my Japanese coworkers, I learned that this is an event that most Japanese people will be wearing yukata. I was soooo excited.

But

I’m an idiot….

A few days earlier (after our last day of work), we dropped off our company uniforms at the dry cleaners. Deciding to take advantage of the situation, I also brought some dresses and my yukata as well. Since this was my first time going to a dry cleaner”s (yeah, I’m a terrific adult…), I really had no idea how long it took to have clothes dry cleaned…. Well, it didn’t take a day like I thought haha. So, I suddenly didn’t have my yukata for the festival. NOoooOoOO~

I decided to buy a cheap one from Uniqlo. The original one I bought was much more expensive and obviously of a higher quality.

Oh well.

I had Pat meet up with them earlier than me as I got ready. I knew that with the hair, makeup and yukata putting-on-ing, that I would take a while. Well, I underestimated how long it would take. Yukata’s are so frustrating to put on and look nice.

Also, short side story:

About a month prior to this time, I got my first haircut in Kyoto. I bleached my hair and trimmed it myself up to that point, but decided it was time for a professional trim. Well, it was a huuuuuge mistake. My hair was like shoulder length and a bit damaged. As I have done many times in the past, I said “I’m not picky about style. Just get rid of the dead ends and give any style.”…. well…. USUALLY, the hair dresser picks a style that suits my face type. I also am 100% okay with short hair, so I told him to cut off as much as he thinks is necessary. Well…. what I’m not okay with is a haircut that is unflattering, difficult to style, or required a lot of work to look proper. That was exactly what he gave me. He cut off a lot, and I was sad, but like, understanding? I knew it was going to be short. I mentally prepared myself for that and let him do what he was doing. In the end, he gave me what is know as a halo haircut. Please, take a break from this post and google it. It is awful. I looked so so so bad. Even now, I am stilll trying to grow this mess of a hairstyle out. The front layers are so incredibly short. I essentially had a mushroom cut mixed with a mullet.

Okay, back to the festival.

My hair was so difficult to style. I could not get it to look flattering. (In my last post at the Gion Festival, I had the same issue). My makeup was okay, but due to my airline incident, I really didn’t own much makeup. My new yukata had an obi (belt) that I had to tie myself, unlike my expensive one that had an easy style obi.

I was so frustrated. It took so long.

I knew the trains were going to be packed and the venue would be so busy. I wanted to leave waaaay earlier than we did.

Well, everyone was very patient with me. We got to the train station and holy moly was I right. The trains were packed! I suppose it was interesting that the McAndrews got to experience the stereotype that Japanese trains are wall-to-wall with people and how people are basically pushed onto the train to fit. Not that that is a good experience, but kind of neat I guess..

Sorry everyone in this pic. You are now famous.

This was at the festival train stop. So many people! Notice that the going up side is completely empty. Not as many yukatas as I had expected, but still quite few.

Once we piled out of the station we followed the crowds to where the viewing areas were. I had brought a cooler bag along so we were also on the lookout for a place to get some drinks to fill the bag with. Everything was crowded. It was pretty difficult to do anything haha. We split up momentarily. The boys got some drinks and the girls went to scout out places. It was already so busy at this time..

It was like an organized chaos. Japan, unlike Canada, really knows how to handle large crowds AND large crowds know how to handle themselves. Nobody was being crazy, nobody was jumping or climbing over the rails, and nobody was on the opposite side of traffic. People walk together as a group and seem to peacefully find a place to view the fireworks without being rude or pushy.

Me and Pat’s mom found a place to sit on the pavement (on a mat thing…). Pat, his dad, and the family friend didn’t want to sit on the pavement and totally ditched us! I was actually pretty annoyed at Pat since I was so excited for this event and really wanted to spend it with him. Oh well. I suuupoooose his comfort is important…

There were around 10,000 fireworks supposedly. It was the best fireworks display I had ever seen in my life. I can’t even describe how stunning they were. I tried my best to take photos of them, but it’s much easier said than done for a non-photographer like myself.

The fireworks were stunning, so here is a whole bunch of photos:

oooh, planets

smiley faces!

teddy bears!

I don’t know!

“falling” type

So many colours. I snapped this one like 1 sec too late…

Probably my favourite photo

I had a lot of fun, despite sitting away from Pat. I’m pretty sure I had teary eyes. It was so overwhelming. The fireworks were so impressive. They had a ‘program’ for the fireworks so it was easy to predict when the big shows would start. In Japanese style, they were on time for every segment. Like, to the minute. This made it easy to follow along and have an idea of what was going on.

The fireworks finished quite late, but we were a bit hungry. Since it is a festival, there is always street food around. But, because it’s Japan, everything closes pretty early. We had to get the last servings from some food stalls. We each got a draft beer (which are served at the street food tents) and drank them on our way back to the train station.

The line for the train was MASSIVE! We had to wait quite a while in line and there were even security guards ushering people inside the station. They must know how many people can fit in the train at a time since they seemed to be counting the number of people entering at a time.

It started to get a bit worrying since the trains don’t really run that late and we don’t live in Shiga. If we missed the train, we would have a pretty expensive taxi ride. Luckily, we did make it. It was a lot of fun. If you are ever in the Kyoto area around the beginning of August, I highly recommend checking out the fireworks festival on the lake.

Day 4 – Osaka (baseball)

Before I talk about the day itself, I have to tell you about buying the tickets. We bought the tickets a week or so before they came. Although the stereotype about Japan is that it is super high-tech, in many ways, it is a bit archaic. It’s like they try to be high-tech, but somehow make it more difficult than it needs to be.

So, buying tickets (or like anything) online is either non-existent or for Japanese citizens only. Sometimes, you can get something online, print out the order, bring it to the convenient store, and then pay at the convenient store. WHY? Why make it so complicated?? Why add so many steps?! ahem. sorry.

In this case, it wasn’t quite that easy. So, to order sporting or concert tickets, you need to go to the convenient store and order them there. There will be a machine (in Japanese only….) where you will find and order your ticket. For people that are fluent in Japanese, this probably is quite convenient. For people like me, who suck at learning languages and definitely don’t know the terms needed to buy tickets, it can be quite a headache. To make things worse, it seems that certain tickets need to be bought at certain stores.

We went to Family Mart to get our baseball tickets. We were basically buddies with the employee that worked there and he tried his hardest to help us. We both had our Google translate out and were basically communicating with the apps. After a long time doing this, we figured out that we couldn’t buy what we wanted at that convenient store. He told us to try Lawson.

We headed to Lawson. We fiddled with the machine there and couldn’t find anything…. We headed to 7-11. We headed to the copying/fax/buying ticket machine. We started to have some luck. It was still all in Japanese so we had to use Google translate throughout the process. We were able to find the games, categorized by teams, and get the tickets. We then had to bring the tickets to the cashier to pay for them (because paying at the ticket machine would make too much sense right?). This was like a good hour out of our day, but we did it!

Okay, fast forward to the actual event.

I decided to take a detour from the family and go to the Pokemon Center for Pat’s mom. She wanted to buy a gift for her niece so I decided to go for her. It is a bit out of the was from downtown Osaka. I was hoping that they would go to Osaka Castle while I was buying this, but as always, they didn’t have enough time. It’s too bad, I think they would have really liked it.

We planned to meet in Osaka once I was finished. But, there was a problem…. My phone was dying. Not just that, but the game was going to start soon. I was in a panic. Finding a place to plug in is really difficult. I got scolded when I plugged into the wall at the train station…. so embarrassing.

My other task for the day was to find a bank and take out cash. Have I ever told you how frustrating it can be to take out cash from a Canadian bank card? It seems that some people (okay, probably most people) can easily take out cash from the atm at 7-11 or at a JP Post atm. For some reason, the ONLY bank that has ever accepted our Canadian card was Citibank. So, as I was dealing with trying to meet up with Pat, carrying around a huge Pokemon Center bag, and havin a dead phone, I was also trying to find a Citibank.

Well, it no longer existed….

ugh.

By pure luck it seems, I found Pat, and we rushed to the Stadium. The game was okay. I’m not a big sports fan, so I mostly enjoyed eating and drinking haha.

I personally enjoyed watching the game in Korea so much more. For someone who doesn’t care for the actual game, the games in Korea are so much more interesting. You can get seats with tables where you can eat delicious fried chicken. You can bring in your own alcohol or food. The cheering sections were so so entertaining and it just had a really fun atmosphere.

The one thing that is note-worthy about this game was the balloons that were shot up into the air near the end (the blue balloons in the photos above). They had a very…..interesting…. shape to them. Everyone let them go at the same time, so it was like reverse rain of blue balloons. They made a whistling sound as they shot up into the air. We didn’t have any, so we felt a bit out of the loop. That would have been fun. Pat’s dad picked up a used one from the ground as a souvenir hahahaha, funny guy.

After the game, we headed to Osaka’s famous downtown area: Dotonbori. This area is really nice at night. There is a river that runs through the middle and has an iconic view.

We were pretty hungry after the game so we went to find some food. I really wanted them to try okonomiyaki as it is a famous dish of Osaka. It is sometimes referred to as a Japanese pancake. It is essentially shredded cabbage, egg and flour that is made into a thick pancake type thing. There are many options for toppings such as squid, pork, kimchi, and apparently tomato… Many places were already closed (did I mention that Japan shuts down early?), but luckily we found a place. This place specialized in a tomato-type of okonomiyaki so I was not too excited haha.

Fortunately for me, they had other special types that were so so good.

Unlike Korea, having a grill at your table doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be cooking anything. The soba and okonomiyaki come to you cooked and are simply on the grill to stay warm and add a bit of crisp if you want it. Man, I haven’t had okonomiyaki in a loooooong time…. it really is a Kansai thing. It doesn’t seem to be so popular here (I live near Yokohama, now).

After we were stuffed, we headed home. We may have gone downtown and watched some Olympics with drinks outside, but I really don’t remember what night that was haha.

Day 5 – Riverboat tour and Arashiyama

We originally planned to have a day of rest on this day seeing as we were being quite active up to this point. We shuffled the days around and decided to go hard and have the day off before our move. This would give us enough time to do the necessary things like returning uniforms to our school, packing, cleaning, and all the last minute details.

This was completely the family’s idea. I was happy that they did some research into what they wanted to see. I felt kind of bad basically dictating our activities. I don’t know what interests them so I just made a pretty generic list of things to do.Which, to be fair, are pretty good things to see in Kansai ( I think…).

So, they found a brochure at the information booth near Kyoto Station. It was for a riverboat tour. Of course it was all in Japanese, but it seemed like a nice way to relax and enjoy some beautiful scenery.

Before we get to that….

You guessed it!

Story time~

Well…. It would be me and Pat if there weren’t hiccups along the way. We actually bought these tickets the day before (of maybe two days before… I don’t remember). They were a bit pricey so we bought them using a credit card (not a common thing in Japan… surprisingly). Since this trip was almost booked, we had to get a strange auxiliary seat on the bus and got a weird special ticket. The auxiliary ticket is much cheaper, but like, not a choice? Meaning, you can’t choose the auxiliary seat to pay a low price. It is only offered to you if the bus is full. The best way of describing what this auxiliary seat is, is to think of a Greyhound style bus and then imagine the arm rest folding out into the aisle for someone to sit on. Wow, comfy….Not so important, but note that we had one weird ticket.

Well we were given a time to meet by the bus. Somehow, we weren’t late. We weren’t very early though either….

As we were about to board, we realized we were missing something. Our freakin’ tickets! Of course nobody had the receipt on them. There was definitely not enough time to go home and get them (we lived like an 8min train ride away so if we had been early, we could have been okay…). We tried talking to the info desk lady and there was really nothing they could do. Unless we had the reciept or tickets we couldn’t go on that trip.

Well, we didn’t really want to abandon our plan at this point. The lady’s only solution was to buy the tickets again and then bring our tickets later to get refunded. What a pain. Well, that’s what we did. Now perhaps someone cancelled last minute, I don’t know, but we had to pay the full price. We didn’t have an auxiliary seat anymore.They also didn’t have ‘real’ tickets for us so we just got on the bus haha…

Okay, so we made it. We got on the bus. It took us to a quaint little train station in the middle of what seemed like nowhere. We then got to go on a ‘scenic’ train. It was really cute.

I apparently didn’t take a picture of the train itself. Trust me, it was cute. The pictures I took from the train were obviously not great…. Oh well, in real life, it was quite nice. On the train, you could pay a person to take your photo with a Polaroid camera in the train. Why? what would the backround be? the old train? Why? Especially when every single person on that train had their very own expensive DSLR camera….. I kind of wanted one…

After our scenic train trip, we arrived at the riverboat station. We were put into groups and shown our boats. Pat’s mom and I were lucky and got front row seats! (I felt bad for the family friend as she is a much better photographer and got stuck behind a pole on the boat…. ). Pat and his dad were somewhere in the back haha.

I can’t even imagine the amount of work these guys that were rowing the boat were doing. They were dripping sweat. Yet, somehow, they were like cracking jokes (I assume since everyone was laughing, but who knows, I didn’t understand a thing. Maybe I was the butt of his jokes, who knows? He could have been like “look at this white girl in the front. Her skin is hurting my eyes it’s so pale!” but I have no idea. I am pretty sure I fake-laughed along to whatever he was talking about. Anyway, point is, he seemed like a funny guy), was telling stories and pointing out interesting things to look at on the way.

I guess I don’t have much to say really… It was a hot day. The slight breeze and being on the water felt nice.

At one point in the journey, there was an opportunity to try rowing for yourself. Pat’s mom is not one to pass up an opportunity so she gave it a shot. Not only that, but she surprised the heck out of the guy since she is pretty strong. It seemed like the technique was quite different from a canoe, a kayak or even a rowboat!

The handles had large grooves in them from being rubbed in the same spot many times over. They had to be constantly made wet to ensure they would glide rather than stick. It was interesting.Okay, here are some more photos!

As we got closer to the end, we went buy a market boat. It was selling some packaged goods and some hot things-on-sticks as well. I got mochi (pounded rice cake) and I really enjoyed it. It’s not for everyone, but I like it ^^~.

We eventually got to our end destination; Arashiyama. This was still part of that package we paid for so we were given a free pass into a temple and the gardens. We pulled up to the shore and were given a time and place to meet for the ride home so we had a bit of free time to explore as we wanted to.

Everyone seemed to have a different pace. Pat and his dad like to basically jog everywhere. How they can appreciate anything they see I’ll never know. Pat’s mom and I are in the middle, snapping photos here and there. The family friend is taking her time to get the perfect shots (she can actually take nice photos haha). We eventually split up so she could take her time and not feel rushed. Pat and his dad were forced to slow down a bit.

Here are some photos!

So interesting…

I always feel a bit weird taking photos of tombstones or statues… I dunno, just feel weird for the deceased that I know nothing about and are reduced to a hunk of stone…

So, we made it to the temple. Oh wait. We don’t actually have any tickets to show! I’m pretty sure we had to whip out a receipt or something. The lady didn’t seem to want to deal with us and let us through. She was probably informed of the tour group and knew what was going on.

Hey cicada buddy…. can you like… shut up for a minute??!!

The gardens were, as always, stunning. The main attraction at Arashiyama isn’t the temple or gardens though. It’s the bamboo forest. It is world famous. It is actually so freaking cool! This was my first time going in the daylight. It can make beautiful photos if you are super lucky to find a time when it isn’t crowded.

We were not so lucky. It was so so busy. I’m pretty sure you need to go early early in the morning to get any good shots. Oh well. It is really cool to see though. I recommend it.

After adventuring around on growling tummies, we found some street food. Pat and I got some really good fish cakes. Pat’s mom told us a story of the worst food she has ever eaten, being a slimy and chewy fishcake, so we urged her to try ours. I think she wasn’t a fan still, but at least her image of fishcakes wasn’t ruined forever. No one else was really interested in the streetfood so we set out to find some real food. We found a small cafe and had some pasta. It was pretty good and it felt nice to sit under some air conditioning.

When our time limit was almost up, we headed towards the bus and checked out the gift shop. After a long day in the heat, we finally got back to Kyoto Station. We were pretty pooped.

We got refunded our tickets later that day. Pat had to move fast to get to our house, grab the tickets and go back to the info place before it closed. We couldn’t go on other days because we had our plans all set out and we had to leave before the place opened and wouldn’t return until after it closed. It was kinda stressful haha.

…To be cont.

Japan with the Inlaws – Part 1 Wow, finally, the time has come! Strap yourself in, this is going to be a long one.

#arashiyama #bamboo forest #baseball #dotonbori #fireworks #fireworks festival #fushimi inari #japan #Kyoto #lake biwa #photography #shiga #travel #white girl in yukata #yukata

0 notes