All over now

Alas, my time in Japan has come to a close. I'm glad that I managed my time well enough this time around to have an ounce to spare to update my blog.. plus my suitcase is within its weight range, my apartment is back to its original state, and all after staying out until 11 last night! I think it's an accomplishment (I think...)

Well, my last week of Japanese classes were kind of a breeze without tests (although there was a debate and a presentation). I am satisfied with my last week here.

Nevertheless, it's kind of a blur to me right now, so I'll work backwards since the most interesting parts happened most recently.

So yesterday (Saturday) one of my friends from Chiba who was raised in Osaka came to Kyoto to visit! I invited to other friends, but it ended up with just my tutor and my friend and I. We had a good time visiting Fushimi Inari, although I was 20 minutes late to the station, not for lack of foresight because I generally allow time to travel if I get misguided. I just realized that I got misguided a little too late on the train heading the wrong direction. The worst part is that I turned my cell phone in the night before, so there was no way to reach them and let them know I was late. The 20th century must have been a scary time.

We visited Fushimi Inari and hiked a little bit up the mountain, but it was hot and we had other plans for the day so we began our descent a little early. Fushimi Inari is a special place and I think a lot of people feel the same. It is the spot where all of those red torii were filmed in Memoirs of a Geisha..Incidentally, all of those torii are donated my various companies. Ah, I wish I took more pictures~namely ones without me in them!

If it's lighter than you think it looks, then your wish comes true..

"It's bright yellow, so it's probably poisonous."

Just a little more background information, since I didn't take nearly enough pictures to truly demonstrate the majesty of this place.. Fushimi Inari is a shrine with fox god messengers, so there are a lot of statues of foxes with bibs on them. Foxes (like tanuki) have magic abilities to transform into various things and deceive people. Tricksey tricksey. Usually there are an inordinate number of cats at this shrine, but today it was too hot so they didn't come out. Apparently people just drop their cats off in the woods when they don't want them anymore. Somehow that seems like it would be the ideal circumstance for a cat... especially since people feed them all the time.

Moving on to an afternoon, and an attempt to eat at a well-known ramen restaurant in Kyoto station only to be rather turned off by long lines and getting yaki soba instead. Anything is fine with me, especially since I got to sit in front of a nice window looking over the long staircase in the station. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of it, so I can't really tell you an interesting story about it either. My bad.

Afterwards we headed to Toji, a nearby temple that I can see from my room actually! It's very tall and has a large rod sticking out of the top, so you better believe that it got struck by lightning, burned down and reconstructed at least 4 times.

The surrounding area was actually quite a bit larger that it looks from the outside, and had some lovely gardens, including a turtle pond!
I would like to cop out and say that my camera wasn't working at this time so I just lost interest in taking pictures, although I could have tried harder to get some life into it >_<. Sorry! There was a really nice pond full of turtles too, appropriately named "Turtle Pond." (or so I think)

And after that we headed to a bookstore in Shijo, said sayonara to my tutor, took a stroll around the Imperial Palace and one last stroll through Doshisha campus, headed back to Shijo, ate dinner at a ramen restaurant, did karaoke for an hour, strolled back around Kamogawa and parted ways. Until 11 PM. Woo, talk about a marathon! And then I got back and worked on my packing while watching a delightful musical called "Mitsuko." I've got to use the T.V. programming that I paid for while I still can!

This is real ramen! In supply while Japan lasts!

Okay, so we got yesterday out of the way and now my memory is beginning to rewind a little. Now we're in Friday, the final day of class and the day of the farewell party. All in all an okay day. I had to give my presentation about tanuki, which I felt was kind of short but at least well received (since when is Japanese graded on timing?). I enjoyed a short rakugo skit (similar to stand-up) in which this Korean guy who speaks Japanese talked on and on about eating udon in Tokyo and Kansai in my final class. Then I returned to school for the farewell party and to see my host family one last time. Fun but a little stressful somehow. It was strange to have a party held for us, in which your teachers, family and tutors are all there just for you. Needless to say, I did not perform, although some people sang songs in English.

The rest of the week was not terribly exciting as it was just me scrambling to take care of last minute things. On Wednesday there was no class in the afternoon so some CLS students and I went to an izayaka for an evening of all-you-can-eating, all-you-can drinking. This trip really necessitates some kind of diet reform, or a more attuned extra-satiated perception because I think there were a lot of complaints about food comas, food babies, etc. But real Japanese food has little in the way of calories to begin with... it's just borrowed fried items and meats are really the source of the "pregnancy" (oh awkward sense of humor, what would I do without you).

Monday I surprise met with my tutor in the convenience store and we went over her English essay, the final assessment of the year for her. The campus is really creepy once all of the regular students leave. All that are left are the invisible but definitely audible cicadas, whose deafening roar may have slightly contributed to my hearing loss. One day I want to film a horror movie about cicadas, but if I try to explain this to my tutor, she only laughs at me and tells me the things I say don't make sense.
Japanese people just love cicada sounds that much.. even if the sound of cicadas was the backtrack for a horror film, I don't know if Japanese would get scared if they found themselves alone amidst an ominous hiss during any summer day.
I still think that it could compete with "White Noise." Maybe I'll have to find a different audience.

Anyways, this is a really strange note to end a blog on. If I get the chance, I may make one more blog entry about the earthquake and its aftermath and effects on the people, since I think that many people may find this topic interesting given the timing of this trip relative to the event itself.

However, I still really love Japan and was glad I could make it back to Kyoto a second-time around, making this my 3rd trip total. The more I come here, the more I feel like my second-home is growing and the more I feel like I'll end up coming back. I may not actually have a choice either. But I am satisfied nevertheless to have created more memories here and build even more friendships with people around the world. Given the duration of 2 months, not much can be expected in terms of language elevation, although I somehow feel like I gained a lot of insights in the language, and of course, culture and personal experience, which cannot be trumped by any textbook. For that I am grateful for this program, and hope that the connections and friendships I made will continually resurface throughout my life.

「さようなら」じゃなくて、「行ってきます」よね？　：）

Race against time.

What?! Another update so soon.. what brought on this sudden good humor?

Me looking at pictures and realizing its about time I got around to recording my most recent adventures.

And having time to spare since the job I wanted to apply for won't let me create an online profile...

But first, here are some pictures that I just uploaded from my cell phone of my fishing escapades in Hiroshima!




























So in case you were wondering, I did end up eating most of the things we caught, including the squid and octopus. It's really something to see a living, crawling, trying to escape thing turn into cuisine right before your very eyes. Well, know I know.

This just in, jellyfish are not jelly-like at all! They are firm and jiggly, but not sloppy and squishy. Now you know.









So maybe I'll post some more "quality" cell phone pics later.

In the meantime, what in the world did I do on my post-travel weeked?! More traveling, what else!

So on Saturday I visited my friend who lives in Kobe, about an hour from here. The most of the day was me wandering around a shopping mall, which is good enough in itself. I got a nice taste of walking around this weekend!
As night fell, though, the scenery was truly worth the wait, as one of my friends had recommended. Kobe is a port town and very similar to Yokohama, near Tokyo. It seems to have its fair share of countryside, although the location I visited called "Sannomiya" had a nice Western feel to it. By that I mean modernity, shopping malls, arcades restaurants and whatever else a tourist could want. So after some light shopping, light lunch, light billiards and some confusion over how to operate some of the games in the arcade, I wandered around on my own a bit while my friend tended to her work. Nothing notable to mention here.

Naturally, Chinatown is everywhere.

Around dusk! The harbor area is gets really pretty.

Mexican food in Japan. What is the world coming to.

So the next day I headed about 30 minutes away to a lovely and mountainous area called Arashiyama (storm mountain). What kind of awesome name is storm mountain? It might be something for Disneyworld to pick on. Regardless, any storming that occurred took place while I was underground, as the day was mostly clear except for some malicious looking clouds on the way home.
Arashiyama has a famous bridge called "Tougetsukou" (Moon crossing bridge) and a not-so-famous monkey park called... Monkey Park. I was surprised at how nice the park attendants were and how lacking in manners the park inhabitants were. Such an interesting contradiction.

Oh well, I suppose people who work with animals are more prone to be magnanimous. They take pictures for you and strike up conversations with you (in Japanese there's this phrase you can add to verbs to give them the nuance of "for your benefit" that I really want to use right here).

They're too busy singing to put anybody down.
So after a long hike up a mountain, you get greeted by a forest of monkeys out of nowhere! It's quite shocking and maybe almost scary.

They all come out for feeding time. Otherwise it's too hot.

By the way, these are all Japanese monkeys. They are the same ones like enjoy hot springs. You aren't supposed to look them in the eyes or else they attack. In the cage it's okay though, since they can't really attack you through mesh wire. Their expressions sort of remind me of tired old people. "Just hurry up and give me that peanut. I'm not especially here to amuse you."

Afterward came sand sculptures, lunch, Tenryuuji and a forest of bamboo! And then home for one last dinner at my host family's house. A very fulfilling weekend, if I do say so myself.

The famous bridge, "Tougetsukyou"
Sand art, made entirely of compacted, wet sand.
In Japanese, "saru" means monkey. In classical Japanese, "zaru" means "no." Sometimes consonants take on a stronger sound when following other syllables. Thus, "kikazaru" (no hear/hear money), mizaru (no see/see monkey), hanasazaru (no speak/speak monkey). Clever.

The famous world heritage site, Tenryuji. What isn't a world heritage site in Japan?

Lotus blossoms! Peek-a-boo, Buddha?


That's all folks. It's getting close to the end of my stay, but I will probably upload at least once more. Stay tuned.

4 Days in Kyushu!

We have really entered the final stretch. When you're only in Japan for two months, you really feel like time goes by fast. Perhaps that is what makes the program so intensive. After getting back from Kyushu I have little over a week left to accomplish everything that needs to be done. Once again, poor bloggie blog falls to the wayside.

But never fear, for I will not let a second pass without giving the complete synopsis (oxymoron) of my escapades in good ol' Kyushu!

So, here's the itinerary for the trip, as usual sent a few days in advance of our departure.
Sunday: Leave Kyoto at 9:29AM for Hakata Station on Nozomi 9 (that's a bullet train's name). We arrived around noon for lunch at a local restaurant. This lunch highly resembled all of our Hiroshima dinners at the Aki Grand Hotel, except that this time food did not emerge out of the kitchen unremittingly.

Hakata is actually the old name. The area is now called "Fukuoka." It heralds 1.4 million people, many of which are youths. There is a lot of shopping in the area, and innovative cuisine. That's because young people don't like old things (sorry older folks) and have to mix flavors to make something new and different. I wasn't really sure if I got to try any new and different cuisine in retrospect, but maybe I can let you be the just of that.

We then proceeded onward with the rest of the days events, defined by our hazy itinerary as "explore Fukuoka City, Dazaifu Shrine, etc.). We interpreted this as "free time to wander about Fukuoka" but unfortunately there is not really such a thing as free time. Not when tax payer dollars are burning. This is actually an exaggeration, as we were allowed 20-30 minutes to wander around Dazaifu after our tour guide gave us her most thorough explanation of the elements of the shrine, most of which were unfortunately drown out by cicada noises. It's that time of year, and cicadas are apparently not so partial to our educational objectives. So in terms of important things to know about this shrine (from prior knowledge and what I can recall) it was the secondary home of Sugawara no Michizane after he was previously exiled from the court in Kyoto during the Heian period. This was very unfortunate for him as he was a good man just trying to do his job and was colluded against. He happened to like plum trees, and once exiled his favorite plum trees apparently flew from the court in Kyoto to his new residence in Dazaifu in Kyushu overnight. After he died, his vengeful spirit supposedly cast a number of curses on the capital, so he had to be consoled with a shrine there called "Kitano Tenmangu." He is also considered a scholastic god, so now students pay their respects to him when they want to pass entrance exams for their choice schools.

Sugawara no Michizane had a connection with bulls.

Prior to this we went to a museum, which was supposed to come after the shrine visit but for various timing reasons we ended up there first. The museum is relatively new, featuring ecologically sound heating/cooling mechanisms that bring cool air from the ground in summer and warm air from the earth during the winter. If I understand correctly, it's one of, if not, the first Kyushu museum and took many years to finally bring it to fruition. The museum was actually very interesting, with a main room featuring ancient artifacts from the island and separate, adjoining rooms about Kyushu's history, exhibitions about other Asian cultures, instruments, religions, etc. Actually very interesting but only so much can be said for 20 minutes.


Actually... to be perfectly honest... while most people complained that we couldn't spend enough time at our various destinations it was probably for the best... at least for my attention span.

So the day ended with our hotel (single rooms= yay although tobacco smell was uninvited) and dinner at a traditional local restaurant. "Chicken boiled plain." I can't say the itinerary didn't warn me. Chicken intestines... breasts, ground meat dumplings, livers. What an adventure. My local lunch had already satiated the bulk of my appetite, so I let my comrades take on most of the fray. Still though, we sat for two hours as baskets of vegetables and then rice were "boiled plain" before our very eyes. We were eventually outnumbered and lost, and the remains of chicken boiled plain were scooped into an urn-like jar. Unaffected by the defeat, some of our troops actually celebrated afterward with ice cream.

The next day we awoke to a morning of what seemed to be ambiguous trekking around the city again but turned into yet another shrine visitation and folk craft gallery/museums. This included a demonstration of ancient technology used to weave obi sashes, something I was exposed to on my first trip to Kyoto.



For those of you interested in things like this, my conveniently English museum brochure does a much better of explaining it than I do:

The most famous of Fukuoka's traditional arts and crafts are "Hakata Ori" (woven textiles) and "Hakata Ningyo" (dolls), passed down through the ages by their craftsmen.

Hakata Ori: Approximately 770 years ago, a young Hakata merchant named Mitsudo Yasoemon visited China with a monk (later known as Shoichi Kokushi) and returned having learned techniques in weaving. This technique was passed down through generations to the present. Improvements were made as time continued, and because Kuroda Nagamasa offered this textile to the feudal government of the Edo period, people began to call it "Kenjo (offering) Hakata Ori." Not only obi sashes, but various items such as dresses and bags are made using Hakata Ori textiles there days.

Hakata Ningyo: When Kuroda Nagamasa took over the Chikuzen area in 1600, he gathered together many artisans, and it is said that the unglazed dolls created by these artisans became the base for the current Hakata Ningyo. During the Meiji era, these dolls became world-renowned, receiving high commendations in various international exhibitions, and are now one of Japan's most famous traditional arts. Currently, many traditional Japanese style houses as well as modern western style houses display Hakata Ningyo to create a comfortable space.

And now you know.
Of course, taking photos of the place is prohibited (as is probably copying information out of the brochure verbatim) so we have no choice but to move onto the next topic.

Guess!






Grape picking and wine tasting of course! We are such epicures. But thanks to the energy borrowed from those grapes, I am able to update my blog like this. Thanks sugary sweet grapes. I would dig into my materials and teach you something interesting about this experience, but the things that stood out in my memory will probably suffice.

It was hot. Japanese grapes are very sweet. There was a corgi. Its name was momo. What do grapes have to do with anything?

Okay, so this trip was unrelated to our "farm experience" but was probably the most "farming" we did. We picked three bags of grapes, looking into each bagged bundle through a hole to see if the contents were dark (and ripe) enough for picking.
As always, Japanese take a very gingerly approach when it comes to agriculture (as with most things) but since grapes are actually given and received as gifts, their quality is brought to the forefront. So from a very early stage in their propagation, the number of grapes in a given bunch are reduced to ensure that each individual fruit receives enough sugar, nutrients, etc. And of course, what would happen without these somewhat ridiculous bags? They keep the fruit intact, so you can give beautiful spotless fruit to you farmstay host family the next day....

...by the way, the next morning we left the hotel and ventured on to meet our respectiev anticipating host families in Kumamoto prefecture. I truly missed enjoying farm fresh food... well, actually I don't think I can say with confidence that I ever enjoyed it given seasonal conflict. But the bottom line is... I really like farmstays for obvious reasons.


After lunch we helped prepare some food for what reason I never truly understood, but am 75% sure was a village festival held that afternoon.

They paraded throughout town, beating drums and riding horses, finally arriving at the shrine where they carried the mikoshi (which contains a god) on their shoulders while the preceding ghostly women carried boxes of food on their heads. Once they arrived at main shrine, the circled it around 7 times, which we did not stick around to watch until its conclusion.

Instead we returned home for a barbeque, nagashi somen and awkward conversations with the festivals participants (basically only men) while occasionally declining offers to eat some raw horse meat.

Behold nagashi somen!

Take some noodles
Put them in a half-open bamboo shell
Grab some somen! Or else it will slip away.
I'm not lying. Why go through all this trouble just to eat some noodles? I never figured it out, but..well.. why not?

Anyways, trying to sum up the rest of my stay with words is impossible. I enjoyed an awesome night with our host family, their extended family with three children, whose elementary school-aged daughters' favorite foods are meat and konbu, a type of seaweed.
I think it's only in the countryside where you can relax and just have a nonchalant barbeque. After my young hostess was finished biking around the driveway, she found me in the guest room and informed me that we were free to do as we pleased, instructing me to use the fan if I got hot, etc. And then she proceeded to run amok in the front yard with the other neighborhood kids. As it turns out, we were staying at a minshuku, a private home provided lodging for travelers. I think that our presence was far from unusual, in spite of being foreign.
From here on out pictures do a better job of explaining and words just take up space and time, so aside from captions, I will sign off here! Look forward to the next blog post (if it comes to fruition).
In Japanese, it's perfectly acceptable to say "kuuki ga oishii" or "the air is delicious." With the vegetation in full bloom in the midst of summer, it's safe to say that this was no exaggeration.

And as I viewed the early morning landscape laying before Aso-san, which had dramatically changed from what was cold and barren a little over a year ago, the scent of the air somehow made me nostalgic.