Kyoto Day 1: Shrines and Temples

7/10-7/13 Kyoto Trip

Well the breakdown of this tip is going to be in parts because we did we way too much in Kyoto to put in one post.

Thurs. night YR, Kevin, our friend Zac, and I all met at 11pm in Shinjuku to catch our night bus. From there it was about a 6 hour bus ride to Kyoto. Of the four of us only YR got more than 2hrs of sleep during the ride. There were also two pit stops which were both refreshing and frustrating at the same time. Frustrating because they both happened right when I was on the verge of falling asleep. When we did arrive we couldn't get into our hostel until 8am so we looked for a place nearby where we could eat breakfast. We found the perfect little hole-in-the-wall joint. It didn't have a sign with it's name, the owner's dog was asleep on the floor, and the counter was strewn with papers and various odds and ends. Basically one of those places where if the food is delicious you don't ask why and just enjoy your meal and if the food is bad you again don't ask why and just never go back. Luckily for us it's hard to screw up the standard breakfast set of coffee, a hardboiled egg, and toast. We played cards until it was time to go to the hostel were we left our bags in the staff room (because even though it was open we couldn't check in for a few more hours), put everything we needed into my little draw string duffel and Kevin's bookbag and got to it nice and early.

Our first stop was Todaiji. (oh yeah these names may not all be completely correct but they should be at least pretty close to what they're actually called) This was a Buddhist temple with a very big pagoda and many other buildings. There was a lot to see and everything was very old and very beautiful. You weren't allowed to take pictures inside the temples but they were each home to about 10-15 giant golden Buddhist statues. Next we meandered through a park that we saw and hung out in a clover field for a while. I even found a four-leaf clover!

Next was lunch at Kyoto Station. First we all went and bought our shinkansen (bullet train) tickets to go home on Sun. Then YR and I ate really good Italian food at Kyoto Station and we all caught our bus. With a helpful tip from the guy at the hostel we had bought a 500yen bus pass because that is the best way to get places in Kyoto. We were first going to go all the way to Ginkakuji and work out way back down to the hostel but I saw that our bus stopped at Kiyomizudera and because I had heard about it I really wanted to go. I was convinced there was a really big waterfall there.

At the temple there was a ton to see. I would love to go back one day and explore more of it. What we did get to see was really amazing. One of the places to purify yourself was a dragon (not a flying horse this time) and the water came from its mouth. We also went into a place called the "womb". You had to take your shoes off and go down steps. There was no light (you actually couldn't see your hand in front of your face) and you had to hold onto the "prayer beads" that composed the railing you held onto to find your way (I still ran into the wall) and that led you to the womb. In there was light shining on a rock with a symbol on it (it wasn't Japanese but something else) that you put your hand on and made a wish. A very fun experience to walk through the complete darkness underground at a Buddhist temple. Then we went searching for my waterfall. We followed signs that had a kanji that included river and neck. We thought that had to be leading to a waterfall. We found out later, after seeing this set of kanji at almost every place we went that really meant we were on the "usual path". What we actually found was a place almost like a waterfall. The water flowed from three spout over the roof of this small platform and you reached out with a dipper to fill your cup and drink. It's supposed to be for wisdom and health (or something like that) and we asked if we could fill up our water bottle and surprisingly enough were told yes. So all day long we drank lucky "wish water". It was a good thing they let us because Kyoto is disgustingly hot and humid. Our clothes were soaked through all day long. It was pretty gross.

Next, we bused to kinkakuji, the silver pavilion. In a way it was big let down because it was under construction so you couldn't really see the pavilion at all. We did see a large pile of sand that represented Mt. Fuji and a field of bees. There were also several types of moss including "moss the interrupter" and "VIP moss". I bought some souvenirs here so hopefully I contributed to the speedy reconstruction of the pavilion.

Next, was the search for Gion Corner where we (not YR) wanted to see a bunraku (puppet play) performance because we thought we had to buy the tickets beforehand. It was still closed (we actually found a back entrance, completely missed the do not enter signs, and got chastised for trespassing before finding the correct entrance) so we decided to come back later. So then went to Yasaka Shrine and relaxed there. There were portable shrines there in preparation for the Gion Matsuri (festival) that would start shortly after we left. After chilling at a little pond there we tried to go to Chionin Temple but it was already closed for the day. So instead we went to Pontacho-ate. This is a street where all the night life is supposed to be and we wanted to find a restaurant were we could have a geisha serve us. Unfortunately, we seemed to be a little too early and a little too foreign to figure out how to do that. We just went to a Tai restaurant and ate there. It was really good but no geisha service.

After dinner YR left and the other three of us went back to Gion Corner to see the bunraku. When we got there, we found that what we thought was only bunraku was actually a bunch of different traditional Japanese performances in one go. We paid our $30 and got to see chado (tea ceremony), koto (the stringed instrument I have pictures of in a previous post), kado (flower arrangement), gagaku (traditional court music), kyogen (traditional comic play), kyomai (Kyoto style dance performed by maiko, the geisha in training), and finally bunraku (puppet play). They were all really interesting but clearly the performances were tailored for foreign audiences. Not that I minded hearing both English and Japanese explanations but there were a lot of tourists there (yes, I was one of them, but I'd like to think I'm a superior tourist to the average Joe-no offense Daddy-with no clue about any of the meaning behind things). I especially enjoyed the comedy. Not only was there an English synopsis in our pamphlet but I could understand enough of the Japanese (though it was hard because they were speaking way old-school style) to find it funny. It was great getting looks from the kind of obnoxious Americans in front of us when laughing at parts that weren't blatantly humorous by the actors actions.

After that we were ready for nothing more than to shower and sleep. But first there was the requisite meeting of our roommates. That first night in our eight-person room it was me and seven guys. Of course three of them were the guys I was traveling with and the other four were traveling together. Three of them were deaf but we talked to the one guy who could hear and through him communicated with the rest. Right when we were finally getting ready for bed we were told that YR had met some interesting people in the lounge and that there was a vending machine with Chu-hi (flavored beer). Once the guys found out I had never had Chu-hi before it quickly became apparent that we still had enough energy left to remedy this. There were two English guys, a french guy, and an American girl all talking to YR when the three of us joined them. We bought our beer and played a massive game of BS. Which was followed by a some very interesting rounds of that game where you write a famous person's name on a piece of paper and stick to someone else's forehead without them seeing it. Once everyone has their new unknown identity you begin asking yes or no questions to try and figure out who you are. There were some really fun ones including Godzilla, a British guy who couldn't figure out he was Winston Churchill, and Kevin as Barbie. We did this until about 12:30ish and then finally went to sleep.

That concludes Day 1 in Kyoto the next installment will be out soon. For now some pictures.

Zac took a picture of us three WFU students on our way into our first sightseeing stop: Todaiji (YR, me, Kevin)

Some of the temple as well as the part of the pagoda we could see as we first walked in.

Gettin' my meditation on.

Godzilla Cynthia at the pagoda. We spent a lot of time taking shots like this here.

On our way to Kiyomizudera we saw these two maiko. They had to be so hot in those kimono.

The first thing you see at Kiyomizudera, which is shortly followed by...

...the sight of this.

The cool dragon (not Pegasus) to purify yourself (also very refeshing in the heat).

The "waterfall" at the temple. It was fun to reach for the water and a lot harder than it looked to fill up the cups. YR and I paid 200yen and bought special cups to stick out there and that we got to keep.

You stuck your dipper into the UV sterilizer after you were done. Smart move but slightly incongruous to see it right there next to the water.

This is the best shot I have of ginkakuji.

This represents Mt. Fuji.

Here all the types of moss you can see at the shrine. The three main types are: (from left to right if you can't read it in the picture) "inhabitants of ginkakuji", "moss the interrupter", and "very important moss (like VIP)".

Even though the pavilion itself was under construction, there was still a lot to see.

The group still at ginkakuji (Kevin, YR, me, Zac)

Yasaka Shrine

Portable shrines for the upcoming festival. It would be so cool to see these carried down the streets.

The nice little park-like area inside the shrine. To the far left you can see a heron (I think).

The Chionin Temple that was closed.

The river side of Pontocho-ate...probably...I was kinda turned around at this point, but we had just left the street so it makes sense that this picture in some way might contain some of the street in it.

Kado. A lot of my pictures from Gion Corner where blurry. Probably because I had to try to take pictures from wierd angles because the lady in front of me kept moving into my view.

Gagaku-traditional court music. There was also a costumed dancer but you can't see him here.

In the kyogen the two servants got tricked into being tied up by their master because he was afraid they would drink all his sake, but as you can see they managed to drink it anyways.

Kyomai

Bunraku. There are three puppeteers but only the master is allowed to not have his head covered and he gets to operate the head and right arm of the puppet.

beauty and the bear puncher

7/6

Today consisted mostly of working on my midterm: three 3-paged single spaced essays. If this was a normal class where the prof wanted you to double space everything that would be 18pages! Super depressing to write that much over summer (or ever). There was one fun break. My host mom took me to the local celebration of the Tanabata festival. There were a lot of stalls lining this one street. They had a bunch of food, games, and things to buy. Many of the kids/teens were dressed in yukata. I wanted to try everything but we were going to a yakiniku restaurant afterwards so I only had bubble tea, takoyaki (octopus balls), yakitori (chicken on a stick), and mizu candy. I also tried my hand at catching goldfish. You use a little scoop shaped like a ping pong paddle but with paper in the middle to scoop the fish into a bowl. I tried twice but wasn't able to do it before my paper dissolved. The man at the stand even showed me the trick to it but I just wasn't able to master it. I think the guy felt bad for me, so he scooped up a whole bunch and gave them to me. It was very sweet of him and made me very happy but I gave them to a little boy because we didn't have any way to take care of them.

festival pictures:

Hey look! A festival!

Can Cynthia catch fish?

This picture says "yes, I can".
Who cares how I got them?

delicious yakiniku. It's so much fun to cook food right in front of you. Yes, that is a bib I'm wearing, but don't worry everyone else was too, I promise.



7/9

Hana Yori Dango Final was full of win! One phrase: bear punching o.O Nope, I'm not going to explain that other that is is exactly what it sounds like. Lauren, Laura, and I went and saw it together and we enjoyed the super discounted tickets for Ladies Day (only 1000yen or about $10). The movie was a great conclusion to a great series and it had everything you could ask for: humor, romance, drama, bear punching, Matsumoto Jun without a shirt...

Some interesting things to note about movies in Japan. One, the Japanese people hardly ever laugh. Both of the movies I've seen here were with a couple of other American girls and both times we would burst out into laughter when we deemed appropriate only to find we were the only people in the audience making any noise. Now some of this is obviously due to cultural differences, but honestly who doesn't laugh when a skinny Asian girl punches a bear in the face-even in she is in the middle of a dramatic monologue of self-revelation? Also, it's really fun making Japanese people uncomfortable by laughing at American stereotypes that appear in their movies (and everywhere else too). For example, did you know that if you cause any problems in America you will get shot? And, just by eating American food you will get fat....oh wait that one's kinda true. It's also fun to go to movies that are in Japanese with no subtitles and know enough Japanese to follow along. That also got us funny looks from Japanese people. They never assume gaijin know Japanese.

BTW, for you Japanese speaking people reading this, the best term ever has been coined: "haku-meiwaku". Meiwaku is to bother others, but it has very deep social meanings here in Japan that can't really be translated. Haku comes from hakujin which is a term for white people. Thus when we white people are bother Japanese (like we were probably doing with our raucous laughter in a quiet movie theater) we are "haku-meiwaku"-ing. Trust me it will be very applicable when/if you go to Japan.

The other exciting thing for today was my next Espoir visit. Not only did I get my hair done but I also met my hair and makeup people (HA! I have "people"). I also talked to just about everyone in the salon and saw pictures of Daisuke-san's new baby. The more relaxed I'm getting with everyone there the more fun this whole modeling thing is becoming. Also, it's a big self-esteem boost. The number of times I heard the words "kawaii" (cute) and "kirei" (pretty) from many different people was amazing. I also receive lots of other compliments: great hair color, pretty eyes, good skin, long legs. O ho ho ho ho I am basking in the glory of being a tall blond in Japan! In actuality, I spend most of the time blushing and saying "arigatou gozaimasu" (thank you) and "okagesamade..." (Thanks to you...). The big day of the competition is the 22nd-less than two weeks. I'm very nervous/excited!

I don't think I explained how the competition is going to work. To the best of my understanding it's a test of the hair and makeup people's impromptu creativity and ability to improvise. When we get to the competition I will be given an outfit and they have to do my hair and what not in a way that matches and shows off their skills. At least I think that's what's happening. It would certainly explain why Daisuke-san just plays with my hair, trying out lots of different things.

pictures:

Lauren and I posing with the HYD movie poster after the movie.

Before the makeup.

During the makeup process. That's Daisuke-san, and this is actually the only part of the makeup process that he actually did. The rest was this really sweet girl who I think took this picture with my camera for me.

After the makeup. Left-my makeup artist. Right-the person who will do my nails. She's actually Daisuke-san's younger sister.

Time for some cam-whoring. Front and center. What you don't realize is that there is someone standing right outside the shot holding a mirror so that light shines on me in all of these shots.

Head angled to the left.

Head angled to the right. Man does my nose look big.

Me and Daisuke-san after about 2 and a half hours of this.

My attempt to get a shot of the back of my hair. I guess it was curly...it felt like he was braiding it at one point, but that might have been before or after this photo. He tried lots of different things. I think he's just trying to get a feel for my hair.

One last shot of the whole thing. I know you've been wondering about the small garden growing out of the side of my head, and I wish I could explain (allegedly some sort of decoration I suppose), but honestly I don't understand either.

crazy professors are the best

7/3

Today found me back in Yokohama. This time for an extra credit trip my professor had set up. This was a little different than my previous visits because the group of us rented bikes a rode around town. The prof. is a really knowledgeable guy and had lived in Yokohama for a while, so he knew a lot about the area. However being in a big group on bikes made it difficult to hear what was being said at times. We saw quite a bit. For example, there was a really big market in two large brick buildings that used to be factories. I got TC a souvenir there (hehehe but I'm not telling what it is). We also went to Chinatown where I enjoyed a butaman (pork bun) for lunch. I bought a t-shirt with kung-fu pandas on it-allegedly as a souvenir but I've already opened it. We also went to the Bluff and took a bunch of group pictures in front of the ocean view. On the way we stopped at an archery (kyudo) range and watched them shoot for a little bit. We also stopped at an otaku store. That was fun to see a whole bunch of life-size models of various comic book characters and movie characters.

The next part was a bit crazy. My prof. took us yakuza (Japanese mobster) hunting. He himself is white leading a group of young, mostly female college students through "Japan's third worst neighborhood". It's actually not bad because of the yakuza but because it is a migrant town where all the foreign workers who take the low paying Japanese jobs and send money back to their family. Sound familiar? I never felt particular unsafe though there were a few rather unsavory looking characters about. My teacher had stopped to tell us something when two guys came up to him and started talking. I couldn't hear what was being said from where I was but afterwards my prof. told us that they were asking about us. Here is my rendition of the prof's tale of what happened:

prof: This is a group of college student biking through Yokohama
am (Asian male): You should be careful there are a lot of yakuza around here, but don't worry it's not late enough to be dangerous.
prof: Oh really? (good job playing the ignorant foreigner card)
am: yeah, in fact this guy *points to man next to him* is an oyabun (boss)
prof: Oh really?
am: yeah, you don't lie about things like that around here, it would get you in trouble.

So not as grandiose as yakuza hunting could have been, but ultimately it was probably a nice safe encounter with the tamer type of gangster that comes out during the day.

After that we went to eat supper. Our prof. recommended this Korean place. I wouldn't have thought it was a restaurant at first because it's two big red. It was actually much more extensive than it firs appeared since our large party was led to a back room with a larger table. It was the best Korean food I have ever had! We ordered a bunch of everything and shared. There was kimchee, bulgogi, bibimbap, and some other stuff that I don't remember the names of.

7/4

Well Independence was fun. I didn't think I would do much here but I ended up getting together with Laura and some other friends from Ontakesan and watching the movie Independence Day (I thought of you Mommy :D ) and we bought some American food to eat. After the movie we went to the konbini and bought some fireworks to shoot off by the river where we hung out for a while. All in all a pretty good time.

7/5

I spent the night in Laura's room and we worked on our really big midterm together. I also got invited to go see Tenimyu with my friend Jill. Tenimyu is a musical based off of the anime Prince of Tennis. It should be really fun but it's right around finals time so I'll also be really busy.

Yokohama pictures:
The group in Chinatown.

Delicious meatbuns being steamed in Chinatown.

Kyudo-traditional Japanese archery

The group with the prof in the middle. The other two guys didn't show up until later so it was just him and a bunch of female students....

At the otuaku store Laura and I posed with Superman.

The final group picture. We actually blocked some traffic taking this. k

The Korean restaurant. So delicious!

procrastinate? me? never!

6/27/08

Today I had a real life adventure.

It was a holiday so myself and several other TUJ students had signed up to speak English with Japanese high school students. It was a lot of fun. Many of them were very nervous but they were also very good at English. Part of the program was to do a cultural exchange so a few of the Japanese students played a song on recorders (oddly enough it was country roads take me home...not very Japanese) and then a group of girls did this traditional dance from a fishing villages. Our demonstration of American culture was the cha-cha slide. Also, one of the guys in our group could beatbox. He was really amazing! It was fun to see what a japanese high school was like 9surprisingly anime-esque at times) and to interact with the students. Also, we each got paid $50.

After that is when I had my adventure. My friend Liz wanted to go look for Totoro's forest (this is from an anime by Hayao Miyazaki) since we were already near Saitama because of the teaching. I'm going to preface this story by saying that there is no way to do it justice and you'll just have to trust me that it was the most amazing night. Since I'm lazy I think I'm just going to copy and paste the e-mail that some of you have already read. Though I might add a few things and try to make it more coherent.

From the station by the high school the two of us navigated through the train system to where we wanted to go, acquired a map from one of the people at the station, and started walking. We didn't stop walking for about 7hrs after that. Basically all our information came from what Liz had found on wikipedia and our map that was all in kanji. On the map were several walking trails that supposedly led you from the station to the forest and various other points of interest. As we started it was already almost dusk but we were determined. We more or less had no idea where we were going and no real way to figure out our map. Our first big break was right after we found a shrine in this town (were we had both prayed for guidance) and as soon as we turned around we saw a conbini and some store called yamato-two of the few landmarks we could actually decipher on the map. We regained enthusiasm and kept walking. After a few more interesting sights (including a dragon slide that went down the mountain for 70m). Eventually we ended up on a trail in the forest and even though it was starting to get dark we weren't going to let that stop us.

There is really no way to describe most of the night because even the parts that should have been mundane (the endless walking , going to a conbini, etc) were amazing. We had a real legitimate adventure. I'll give some of the basics of the coolest things that happened as we walked through a forest in the dark in Japan. The first big thing happened as we were getting to were we could barely see when out of nowhere lights appears. We had found another shrine lit by several lanterns. This one had nobody around and was in the middle of the forest. Just imagine how cool and moving and beautiful shrines look during the day and then multiply that by a thousand for how completely, overwhelmingly amazing they are at night. It had a very spiritual/supernatural feeling. We decided we couldn't stop there, we had to explore more. We both had hiking experience, Japan was a safe country, the path was (for the most part) wide and easy to navigate, and we could see by the moon or if necessary my penlight I had in my purse. So as you can see we had plenty of logical reasons for why it wouldn't be bad to keep going but really we both had got a taste for an adventure and had no desire to stop. It really became like a quest when markers started appearing. We realized we were on the hiking path because these old fashioned looking signpost were showing up. They were rock and wood and had only kanji (which matched up with what was on our map) and and how many km to the next thing it was pointed to. They weren't always very noticeable so we had to constantly search for them making it like a quest for the next clue. We just kept walking, not always following the main path, but making sure we could get back to it, and finding interesting things-a graveyard, a playground, something that looked like a training ground, and many other things. It was really neat how our course took us through this tiny town that had pockets of ancient Japan in it as well as through the forest which just reeked of older times.

One of the weirder occurrences of the night came near the end. We still weren't sure if we in Totoro's forest (there were several different ones and even when we "knew" where we were we didn't really) As we were walking in the dark, holding hands to make sure we stayed balanced and didn't lose each other, we both saw something white up ahead in the darkness. At first I thought it was a rock sign post (think one of those calf high rocks in Spirited Away) but then it moved. As it ran forward we realized it was a completely white cat. After we had both jumped Liz said her first though was that it was a kodama (one of the bobble head forest spirits from princess mononoke). We went down the path it had ran down and found at the end a sign that said we were in Totoro's forest: Hachikokuyama. Also at the bottom was another cat sitting and staring at the sign. It didn't move, it barely looked at us, it just sat there as we started at it and even as we took pictures of it and the sign. From that point on we had several other cat guides. It was really weird how they would pop and go in the direction we needed to, half the time I'm sure they were just running from us in a direction that happened to be straight ahead but there were a few times that it was just exceptionally coincidental that they went in a direction that was "showing us the way". Plus, it's just so much cooler and fitting with the feel of the adventure to say that we had an animal guide or a kodama showing us the way. ^.^

Well I didn't do the adventure justice because there is just no way to convey how awesome the night was. Just think about what it's like to walk through a forest at night with only one other person (who, because she had read just as much fiction, watched just as much anime, and played D&D, was also very easy to convince to make the evening as amazing as possible) and now imagine what that would be like in Japan with shrines and graveyards and animals thrown in with our overactive imaginations. At the end of the night it really felt like we were stepping out a fairytale. Throughout the whole thing we both couldn't stop smiling and saying "this is so cool, so freaking awesome" over and over again. When we woke up the next morning we each were like "did that whole thing really happen? did we really do that?"

My only regret is that we were there so late that we had to run to catch the last train to Ontakesan dorm (there was no way I was going to make it to Chiba before the trains stopped running) and as we were running my camera fell out of my pocket. I turned it on and it was still working so we kept running. But when I went to look back over my pictures of the day (and night) I found that my memory card had fallen out. Luckily I had just imported all of my pictures onto my computer the day before and I had an extra memory card but it's still really annoying to have lost the shots from the high school and the night.


6/28

Since I spent the night with Liz I joined her and some of the other people in the dorm to go to Yokohama to go to the little amusement park that's there. We had some issues with our tickets because they only spoke Japanese and this was another one of those situations where what those of that could speak Japanese knew didn't really cover what was being said. Eventually we figured it out and we rode a log ride, a giant Ferris Wheel (the ride was 14min. long), a roller coaster, and we went into a haunted house. I bought another keychain for my phone. This time I got Ace from One Piece from one of those machines where you put you coins in and turn the knob and out pops your prize. After that we went to an art show that some Temple students were in. It was okay. I went home then and watched the rest of Hana Yori Dango. I cried so much, it was soooooo good. I can't wait to go see the movie here.


Pictures:
Us (minus Kat taking the picture) all posing. (Tony, Cynthia, Liz, Christina, Alex)

The park as we were approaching it. You can see the ferris wheel and the big pink coaster we road.

The reappearance of Cynthiachu. Too bad my eyes were closed.

Everyone in the Ferris Wheel. Somehow you can see us all (more or less).
(back: Tony, me front: Kat, Alex, Liz, Christina)

The view of Yokohama from the top of the Ferris Wheel.

This was a ride that we didn't actually go on, but this was a photo op I couldn't miss.

This was at the entrance to the haunted house ride we went in. I think Kat was probably scarier looking that anything in the actual ride. (me, Tony, Kat, Christina, Alex)

The best game ever. We didn't play but of course Japan would have a Cup Noodles themed game.

This is me and my host mom (Okada Hiromi-Japanese style so her family name is first). I look pretty bad in the shot but she's very adorable so you can all see the awesome lady that is putting up with me this summer.