Adventures in Japan

holy adventures

2007-05-22T18:53:00.000+09:00

lots to catch up, but that's ok.

after the zen temple, i had a couple days of rest. in this lull, i went with some people to see Spider-man 3, which was really funny in how bad it was. let's just say that Kara and I, being probably the only two americans in the theater felt so patriotic when Spiderman slid across in front of the conveniently placed American flag. Oh Spider-man! You truly are a patriot in the tradition of Paul Revere, George Washington, and all those guys and gals.

but then, one fine early morning i awoke to meet with juli, kara, and daniel at the train station at some ridiculous hour to plod our way through the mountains (with the assistance of a train) and finally make the ascent (with the assistance of a cable car) to the holy mountain of koya.

Oh why is this picture blurry!

It took us 20 tries to keep a straight face.

it was something like a two and a half hour journey which is why we left at an hour which is too early to be named. before we took the cable car to the top, i learned of the depth of daniel's fear of spiders. i had long known that daniel was afraid of spiders, but so am i so i figured it wasn't that big a deal. we both went to the restroom at the station and he goes into a stall and all i hear is "ahhhhhhh," like superloud. for those who don't know, many japanese toilets are no more than holes in the floor. i thought maybe he fell and slipped in. he was panting quite loudly at the point when i asked if he was ok. apparently there was a spider in there. i walked out of the restroom laughing to much to accurately tell the others. we continued to poke fun at him the rest of the day.

the entrance to koyasan if approached by foot from the mountains. we came in backwards because we took the cable car *shame*

hiking, there was some of this. found a shinto shrine. there's a rule of thumb in japan, if there's a trail to walk, there will be a shrine at the end/apex of the journey (and perhaps a few along the way). no better way to mark achievement right? we walk long, we see a shrine and hooting and hollering and high fives ensue. this is how it goes. the japanese generally just look at us funny. we also saw a demon trapped in a tree. it was held there by rope. that was some good rope. i don't think you can buy this kind of rope at lowe's.

what a good looking group

eating lunch in an "international cafe" (there was vegetarian food you see... kara often laments that she had to be friends with two vegetarians -- take that meat eaters! nrah nrah), it was a cool place. we sat in the lofted area above the main dining area on the floor. we each came up with our own mudras. a mudra is a hand position of Buddha in art. the different positions mean different things. there's a teaching mudra, a "do not fear" mudra, a knowledge mudra, a touching the earth mudra and so on. to the canon we added the total rock mudra (someone hand buddha the axe and he will melt some faces and shatter some worlds with his solo, trust me), the puppy mudra, the "that's a good cup of tea!" mudra, the "oh my gosh what have i done" mudra, and there was another but i can't remember it. from this i will use my cleverness to deduce it was the mudra of forgetfulness. but no worries, i have video evidence of all this.

It was also determined during lunch that I would make a bad ninja because I am afraid of heights. Not to mention tall and clumsy. (drawing by Kara)

after this was the main attraction, the gigantic grave yard in an ancient forest. we had already noticed that this was an ancient place by the sheer size of the tree. it took all four of us to hug just one tree.

note: half these people are ghosts!

a strange sign near a bathroom. i think the message is that cigarettes make the world cry and the eyes of the children burn.

people aren't all buried here, now, because they generally do cremation in this country. and in many cases it's not the entirety of someone's ashes interred in this graveyard. sometimes it's just a few. this graveyard has been around since the 800s C.E. now you may ask why do so many people want to be interred (partially) here. well, koyasan is the holy mountain of the shingon sect of buddhism. shingon buddhism is a kind of esoteric (secret!) buddhism. the founder was this dude named kukai and he settled koyasan in something like 819 c.e. At a certain point, Kukai decided that he wasn't going to die, but rather he was just going to meditate until the Maitreya Buddha came (the Maitreya Buddha is the "Future Buddha" that will come at the end of the world to wake everyone up. He's Buddhism's answer to the second coming of Christ... note, this is an exaggeration and a flawed analogy and ideas of the Maitreya Buddha undoubtedly precede the notion of the second coming of Christ please don't take me seriously too much). Then he'd tag team it with that Buddha. Well, people thus think that if some of your remains are near Kukai (who, in his eternal meditative state is called Kyobo Daishi) then you'll get resurrected first. It's actually quite cool because the head monks of Shingon still bring food to the guy every day (they've been doing this for like 1200 years now) and even change his clothes. they only let the super-advanced monks do this though. because, let me tell you, it would take some spiritual strength to see a 1300 year old dude with his clothes off.

despite that i'd been getting tired of temples, the temple in front of kukai's meditation spot was cool and filled with lanterns. we couldn't take pictures (this is esoteric stuff, afterall) but it was cool. before we got there, there was this box with a rock that, if you could lift it onto a platform, meant that your sins were light. all in our party tried it and it seems that Daniel is the only pure one among us. this is undoubtedly because he's scandinavian.

well, in hopes that we'd get good cred with the Future Buddha and Kukai, Daniel, Kara, and I dropped a hair near Kukai's box. so we're set. Juli opted not, but fortunately for her (oh Buddha bless impermanence) we're always dropping skin cells and hairs everyone, so i think when the time comes for the future Buddha to swoop down in eternal glory she to will be picked up by Kukai.

(note: i'm pretty sure this is not actually how it works, and that one probably has to deposit some remains post-death for this to work. but we're gonna hope kukai makes an exception. i mean, how could he say no to these faces)

Juli had a run in with a bear. He got her eye, but she got his teeth.

an unfortunately blurry picture in front of a kind of grave/monument for a rocket company of sorts. different companies had corporate grave/monuments. there was even a monument done by a pest-control company to honor all the termites they'd killed.

tired, we left after eating some tofu with ridiculously spicy mustard. that was a trip. i think if i ate a tablespoon of that stuff, i'd be enlightened. and my sinuses would be clear too. that'd be two birds in one stone (in one stone? i think that mustard affected me more than i thought... ).

we went and saw the giant stupa thing and a bell, and then we returned home.

I don't know why I'm making this face.

the next week, after some classes, juli and i went to Ise which is some 3.5 hours east of here. Ise is another super-holy place in Japan. it's the number one shinto shrine in all of japan. all shrines are dedicated to this god or that, but this one is dedicated to the sun goddess, from whom humans (specifically the emperor) descended... or some such thing. most shrines are very colorful. lots of orange and white. but ise is different. it's in a forest and everything is natural. they don't paint the structures. also, each building is rebuilt every 20 years. the wood from the old buildings are then sent all over japan to be used in repairs and construction of new shrines. so pretty much every major shrine in japan is connected with Ise. this rebuilding has a practical purpose too. it keeps the traditional japanese construction techniques (i.e. no nails) alive.

we arrived and found a crowd of people dressed up in white (pilgrim's clothing no doubt). there was a guy playing a taiko (a large japanese drum) and another playing a flute. then some women danced. before this we had spotted this large wheeled wagon with three large logs on this. what was this, we thought. wood for a new building maybe. cool deal.

some kids and some old people doing some chants. enacting a kind of conversation between the elders and youthful generation. unfortunately, i could not understand what they were saying, but the significance of it, i could determine.

well after the dancing, the men all gathered round, pulled out the rope from the wagon and began hooing and hah-ing. i had seen one of the guys drinking a canned chu-hai earlier (an alcoholic beverage usually lemon flavored). after this, they began pulling the thing down the road. it looked like they were going to run into the crowd, but they didn't.

now i had heard the guy on the loudspeaker say something about going slowly. i'm not good with japanese but "yukkuri" i did hear. and they were slow, until they turned down the street at which point they all yelled out and began running like crazy with this thing. i understood now why the guy was drinking. he had to get ready to go crazy.

so that was awesome to see. we followed the wagon to where they were going to load the logs into a pool to then be used for construction. it was a hot day, so we were thankful when a man came around handing juice out to everyone.

we waited around, heard some "bonsai's" and then left to go enter the outer shrine (there are two, the outer and the inner).

it was rather cool, and felt different than other shrines. seeing these things before we entered gave me the feeling for the first time that for some there might be more to shinto than superstition and wishing (which is what it tends to be for most it would seem). we saw the outer shrine, left, got some lunch and then took a bus to the inner shrine.

Just outside the outer shrine

again we saw another wooden cart with logs, but here there were a lot more people. we crossed a bridge over the river and began following thousands of people clad in white pilgrim's clothes heading towards the inner shrine.

In seeing everyone gathered for the beginnings of construction of a new building I couldn't help but think about the Amish raising a barn.

now it should be noted that both with the outer and inner shrine you can't actually enter them unless you're important. this means that pretty much everyone just goes to right outside the inner shrine, does their prayer, makes their offering and leaves. it's super secret. we couldn't take pictures past a certain point, but outside the area i was able to snag a picture or two of the roof of the inner shrine in the distance.

Outside the inner shrine. Past this point, no pictures.

the roof of the inner shrine

we also stopped at the famous wedded rocks as they're called which weren't too far from the shrines. the sun was setting and we sat out by the ocean for a while before making the four hour trip back (after spending time at what felt like an abandoned train station hoping there would indeed be a train back).

then it was finals. yeah, finals, already. who knew. Juli and I both finished up on Tuesday and made one last trip to Fushimi-inari (she really wanted to go again before leaving). That was a nice trip.

wednesday we went to universal studios in osaka because, well, why not. it was a nice cool day and because it was a weekday we didn't have to wait too long for anything. Juli had never really been on a real roller coaster and had been traumatized by Tower of Terror with regard to free falls (well she had fun on that ride too, she told me, despite being scared out of her wits). so i decided naturally that she should go on the one at USJ (as it's known). the coaster was actually quite mild and i didn't hold on to anything the whole way, but she was rattled by it. again, she had fun, but i think she needs time to recover after these thrills. all in all, it was a fun day.

Thursday I went to karaoke with the swedes and kara and a couple japanese friends as our end of the year celebration. four hours of karaoke and my voice was broke. and we always end on bohemian rhapsody which is painful to sing (and probably more painful to hear!). i will miss karaoke back in the states.

Friday, I went with Juli, Kara and others to Osaka to America Mura where they were doing some shopping. It wasn't a very fruitful trip, but fun nonetheless.

And Saturday was my final day with Juli in Japan. She was going to stay overnight at a hotel near the airport so I helped her take her stuff there before going to Osaka to meet and say goodbye to a friend. Then me and her said farewell to Osaka on the Ferris Wheel and had a cup of coffee before she caught the bus back. yeah....

Sunday I went to a concert with a variety of local acts. Some were good. Some, not so much. I sat too close to the speakers. One of the bands Daniel is friends with. They are called Perfect Dancer and they are two Japanese girls who hold guitars, kinda sing and wear yellow hats. By all standards, they are quite awful. But we suspect that there's more to this than we can see. It's almost like a kind of joke, a piece of performance art that leaves people holding their ears, awkward, or laughing (sometimes with the two). At least, we hope and are pretty sure they don't take themselves seriously as musicians.

Went to a flea market yesterday, picked up a couple things but will go to another one on Friday with Daniel and Kara (as she is presently on the beach in Okinawa) and finish up gift shopping.

I hope all is well in your world. Things are a bit lonely here. My roommate just moved out so I've got the room to myself but with the year having ended I'm feeling less and less connected with things. But, only a week and a half til the family gets here, which means I need to get serious about getting plans together of all we're going to see. There's plenty to be sure, I just need to organize it all.

good morning sunshines

2007-04-30T11:27:00.000+09:00

let's do a quick recap of the past, oh gosh, month or so.

spring break ended. cherry blossoms began peeking out from the buds, hoping that spring was indeed here and not some nasty trick. they were a bit worried, because they were coming out about a week earlier than normal. perhaps you know the reason why. but they did come out, and following them were flocks of people armed with blue tarps and beer. this is called hanami, which literally means looking at flowers, but it's a big deal in sakura season and anyone who's anyone goes out and enjoys the beauty of the short-lived flowers.

i saw them first at himeji, before they were fully open. himeji is a big castle. it is considered to be the best castle in japan because, unlike the others, it has not been reconstructed with concrete.

i had been reading through a book of poems by the haiku dude, basho, and whenever he mentioned "cherry blossoms," he seemed to almost always mention a place called yoshino. i did some looking and it turns out that yoshino is south of nara a bit and only 2 and a half hours away. so i figure with this rare opportunity, i would go to yoshino, which has mountain sides covered with cherry trees. i was planning on going by myself if no one else wanted to go, but i was talking to this girl here named Juli who didn't have any plans so she went with me. i think this turned out to be a good thing.

it was a long trip, and it rained, but it was still fun. we sat out on Juli's jacket (anyone who doubts the death of chivalry should take note) eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and watched the cherry blossoms for a couple of hours.

jaunting down a back road a ways, we found a hillside graveyard, and almost got ran down by a car that looked like it could have been the vehicle of a nemesis of james bond. naturally, being the ever-cool guy that i am and always well aware that danger could strike at any moment, i yelped and jumped to the side of the road.

when it was time to leave, we were well wet and cold, but it was fine. we tried to dry out on the train and stay awake on the train (they release an odorless, colorless gas on trains here that causes every one to fall asleep. if you go to japan, watch the people on the train, they will fall asleep. some of them have caught on and wear masks, but sometimes the gas penetrates these flimsy filters)... talking about this and that and the other. we spent the rest of the evening hanging out, and now we are going out. spring is the time of beginnings, and under the cherry blossoms seems an appropriate place to start.

spent the next day doing the more traditional hanami with the swedes and japanese by a river lined with cherry trees. there was sushi, yakisoba and a hawk that circled low and dove down to pick up mice from the field. i think it's true intent, though, was to catch a small japanese child and raise it as its own. i saw the desire in its eyes. others didn't, and they let their kids run loose, hoping that gravity would keep them chained to the ground. they were lucky this time, but someday those children may very well break that bond with the earth. maybe we will see that day.

once upon a time, april came. spring and green and too few showers (the river nearby is drying up, we wait anxiously for gifts in tiny packages to be dropped from the sky) were the theme, and it passed very quickly. there was a trip to kobe with Juli, going out into the bay on a boat, trying to lasso the whole city in a frame from the tops of mt. rokko and okonomiyaki. i think i am addicted.

in the midst, there was also a concert. it was vooredoms and sonic youth. vooredoms destroyed the japanese shyness and swirled with a thousand drumsticks the crowd in every direction. a japanese guy pulled me into the madness.

i have now just arrived back from a short, three day stay at a zen temple outside of kyoto. run by a russian guy named gemma from siberia and german guy named bjorn under the instruction of a japanese roshi (teacher), this was different than i expected. i arrived late, but fortunately made it in time for the 5 o'clock dinner. they eat in silence and in a ritualistic manner. "watch how he does it and do the same." i began setting out my dishes. "is that how he did it?" [i]ummmm[/i] "like this." i corrected myself. you know i am a slow eater. they eat very quickly. i was still working on my food when i hear. "the others have finished, hurry." woofing down my food, i would find that eating became a race the next few days, not wanting to be caught in the precarious position of making others wait. i would make the same mistake drinking my tea too slowly the next morning during zazen. "don't make the others wait."

gemma, who was giving me all these instructions, at first appeared to me to be a strict person. and, indeed, during zazen, eating, and sutra chanting, he was very serious and sure to make sure we followed the rituals correctly. but outside of this, he was a very funny guy, who joked quite a lot and had a taste for sweets. i also could not fail to notice the irony in the fact that he smoked, despite how important breathing is in zen.

speaking of zen. zazen was excruciating. i don't use this word very often because i live a very comfortable life. and you may think sitting still on the floor for an hour is no big deal. it is. sitting half-lotus, after 10 minutes, my legs begin falling asleep. at 15, the pain begins. at 20 the pain and numbness (here's a paradox, my legs become both numb and painful at the same time) spread to the upper legs. at 25 the muscles in my legs want to spasm. i hold them in place, breathing heavily thinking, why am i here? why i am here? why won't they ring the bell. ring the bell please! at 30 minutes, there is a five minute break, just enough time for me to nurse my legs back to life before we restart this process.

while there, we did two hours of zazen a day. once at 6am and once at 7pm. the one at 6am came after our 5:15am sutra chanting. zen is difficult and certainly not for the faint at heart. i think this was a good experience, and maybe i can muster the will to continue the practice. bjorn told me that after 6 months, the pain goes away. i wonder if the pain really goes away, or if at that point, pain becomes less a bother.

the food while there was quite delicious. rice, a variety of vegetables, soup, fried tofu (i am finding that tofu, in fried form is very good. i still do not fancy it when it is in its gelatin state). i begin to wonder how it was so difficult for me to give up meat in the states. one can eat very tasty, healthy, filling food without animals. i think it is just a matter of learning to cook with a different framework. this kind of cooking, i need to learn.

i am now back, and very tired. three mornings with 4:45 wake up calls can wear one out. there was much more to this experience than i am revealing now.

we only have two days of classes this week, and then i think i am going with Juli to mt. koya, the central point of shingon buddhism, and ise jingu, the most important shinto shrine in japan.

spring break, did that even happen?

2007-04-27T11:27:00.000+09:00

This is the second part about my spring break in Tokyo and the Izu Peninsula. If you haven’t read the first part, go ahead and read that first. the internet is slow today. no pictures now. sorry. maybe layyyyter.

I woke up Monday for a rendezvous with a friend of mine from my spoken Japanese class, Sabina. She was traveling to Tokyo with two others and conveniently staying at a hostel just across the river from my hostel. So I walked over to meet them. Along with Sabina, there was Hana from Egypt and Michael from Louisiana. The plan was to do a little sightseeing around Asakusa, which is famous for a temple. But first, they wanted to eat breakfast. So, where do four foreigners go to eat breakfast in Tokyo? Denny’s. Yes, Denny’s. I didn’t make the decision, I was just along for the ride. After 3 nights by myself in Tokyo, I was glad for any company I could get and these three made for a good group to hang out with.

Denny’s in Tokyo is very little like Denny’s in the US. The cup of coffee is not bottomless, there are practically no pancakes and no eggs, and yeah, well, really I don’t know what Denny’s is like in the US. I think I may have eaten there once. So we ate a quick bite there and then went to explore the area.

Asakusa is famous for a Buddhist temple that was built around a tiny (7cm) statue of Kannon (the bodhisattva of infinite compassion, who has staved off enlightenment until all sentient beings are enlightened; for my more savvy reader, this bodhisattva is also known as Avalokitesvara) that was miraculously fished out of the Sumida River by chance. But naturally, they keep this statue hidden from public view… perhaps to keep a teenage girl from stealing it and attaching it to her cell phone as a little trinket, which probably doesn’t make any sense to you, but here they attach little dolls and knick knacks to cell phones. Because, really, what’s the fun of having something you can’t accessorize the heck out of?

So we approached the temple, passing by about 100m of gift shops before reaching the temple. We went up and looked around. It was a fairly crowded temple, as it is Tokyo’s temple par excellence, but to me, being a guy from Kyoto, this was little more than a fairly common temple with little real life to it (it was a tourist attraction moreso than a religious site it seemed). Of course, also at the temple you could get your fortune (which is not Buddhist, but they just mix everything together here). Some of my companions got theirs, which ranged from good to very bad. They convinced me to get mine as well, which turned out to be very good. I guess that’s nice.

We exhausted Asakusa fairly quickly, and before long were on our way to… IKEA? Yeah, ok, so again, I wasn’t making decisions, but just going along for the ride. But Sabina is from Sweden and apparently IKEA has Swedish food and goodies which Sabina wanted, so we went to the Tokyo IKEA which is a bit outside the main city, but it wasn’t too bad. I’d never been to an IKEA before, so, really, this wasn’t bad. The food was surprisingly good and we left well fed (albeit after maybe hanging around the store too long).

We were then off to Tokyo Dome City, where there was supposed to be a really good roller coaster. Sabina was nervous about the whole thing, not being really comfortable with thrill rides… and considering this one had a huge drop and got up to 130km/hr, I don’t blame her. But we were able to convince her to go. And boy was it fun. The sun was setting and as we zipped up and upside down, we got some quick views of the city that were really cool.

After this we went to Shibuya to meet up with a friend of Hana’s who’s a student in the Tokyo area (Yokahama to be precise). We met up with him and he took us to a British style pub, where I had some fish and chips which was quite good. We then left and went down the street to a nearby izakaya and finished off the night hanging out and talking.

The next day they were off to Disney Land, and though I was tempted to go with them, I decided it would be better to spend my last day in Tokyo doing something particularly Tokyo, so I set off for a few things.

After a brief stop strolling around a garden, I went to Yasakuni Jinja, which is an infamous shrine in Tokyo. This is the shrine where the Japanese war dead are enshrined. Every year, when the prime minister makes his visit to the shrine, Korea and China get (understandably) upset. This is because in addition to all the soldiers enshrined here, there are six certifiable war criminals enshrined here. Also, next to the shrine is a museum, which purportedly offers a revisionist view of history that says that the Japanese were forced into attacking Pearl Harbor among other highly dubious claims. I must admit I did not go into the museum because I did not have an interest in supporting this kind of misinformation.

After this, I went back to the Harajuku area. There was a “macro-biotic” restaurant I wanted to go to and so after the obligatory period of being lost, I found it and had a wonderful meal for only about 1000 yen.

I then strolled back around Harajuku a bit and ran across this really funky and cool design space that provided a place for new artists to show off their work. It was really cool. In one of the areas, there were some Japanese girls who were showing off their photography. They asked me to write down my impressions of their photography, which I tried to do as best I could using words. I hope they were able to understand my comments.

I finished off the evening walking back around Shibuya and grabbing a bite to eat in a coffee shop. Sitting in the shop, finishing off dinner, I felt some dizziness. I had been moving all over without stop for the past five days, and, at this moment of quiet stillness, I felt the effects. My time in Tokyo was coming to an end just at the right moment.

I woke up fairly early the next morning, for I knew I had a few hours on the train ahead of me to reach the southern part of the Izu peninsula. The trip ended up taking longer than expected, in part due to an hour long delay at one station. This came as a surprise, as in all my time in Japan, one thing I have noticed is that trains and buses are always on time. So I was a bit surprised, but I suppose an hour ain’t so bad.

I arrived at the place I was staying in the afternoon, at about 4pm. It was a very nice pension, and I had a Japanese style room to myself. I put my stuff away and then walked down the beach, for which the town was famous. White sand, crystal blue waters. It was lovely. There were a bunch of people out surfing, even though it was a cool March day. I can’t resist an ocean, no matter the time of the year, so I had to jump in. Of course, I jumped right back out because it was really cold.

My room at the pension in Izu

I took a bus to Shimoda, the larger town nearby, hoping to get some food to eat. The town was unfortunately quiet, and I ended up at a conveyer belt sushi place.

I came back to the pension and the man who ran the place with his wife asked me when I wanted to take a bath. “A bath?” I said a bit surprised. “Um, about 9, I guess.” I hadn’t expected this, and within half an hour I was downstairs scrubbing down for a bath which the guy had drawn for me. It was wonderful. I felt like I was living a life of luxury, even though the room was only costing me about $45 a night. I went to bed, refreshed and ready for my next couple of days traveling around the peninsula.

I woke up fairly early the next morning and, after stopping at the convenience store down the hill for a bit of food for breakfast, stood at the bus stop waiting for a bus. Because I was a bit off the beaten path, buses ran less frequently than I’m used to here, but it was a sunny morning and I didn’t mind. Well, a few minutes before the bus arrived, I started to think how nice it’d be if someone would stop to give me a ride. And what do you know, but a car pulled up and a woman, probably in her 50s, jumped out and started gesturing to me to get in the car. “Is this a taxi?” I asked (it should be noted that when I quote my conversations with Japanese people, the conversations are all conducted in Japanese insofar as I am able, so I’m, naturally just providing a translation of what I said). “No money she replied?” So, I though, what the heck, and jumped in. It was a very friendly couple and they took me to the train station in Shimoda, from which I was to catch another bus. They told me they had a daughter in New York and that they lived in Ito (a city more to the north on the Izu Peninsula). We arrived, and I thanked them and they left.

Perhaps you may be thinking that this is a bit dangerous to take a ride from a stranger. Maybe so, but Japan is really safe. Or at least, I feel really safe here. I probably take it for granted, but I don’t take any extra precautions against theft or pick-pockets or anything here because that kind of thing just doesn’t seem to happen here. When I go grocery shopping at multiple stores, I often just leave my food out with my bike while entering another store. I’ll leave my stuff sitting in a train station to go get something to drink at a vending machine or convenience store (I don’t let it out of sight, though, so I’m not totally irresponsible).

Let me give you an illustration of how safe this place tends to be. My Latvian friend Lena lost her wallet while out and about one time. She didn’t remember where she left or lost but it just ended up gone. She called the police station and someone had returned it, all cash intact. Or there are the many instances where we’ll be walking out of a restaurant only to have a worker there come running after us with something we left inside.

So, it wasn’t too much of a jump for me to take a ride from a stranger. I’d do it again, if anyone offered.

I caught a bus from Shimoda down to the southern most tip of the peninsula and walked out to the point, where there was a lighthouse and a little shrine. I should note that at every point, on every mountain… pretty much any place one has to walk to or whatever, there is a shrine. It’s like the obligatory gift shop at the end of every ride at an amusement park. A shrine is always there (usually near to a gift shop). It was a beautiful place, with beautiful rock formations. Out in the distance we could make out some islands. It was great.

I spent some time there and then returned to catch a bus. It seemed I had just missed one, so I had to wait about 45 minutes for the next one. So I pulled out a sandwich I had made and bought a drink from an old woman who owned a little store there and sat inside and ate.

I caught the bus, which winded its way around roads along the coast, which was just phenomenal. I took a lot of pictures. About an hour later, I was at Dogashima, a town on the western part of the peninsula. I was here to go to an onsen, which is a natural hot spring bath. Dogashima’s onsen is famed because it is on a cliffside. It took me a little bit to find it, but when I did it wasn’t long before I was naked with 6 Japanese guys in a bath. Pretty exciting, eh? I lost my fear of nakedness rather quickly, and enjoyed looking out over the ocean while bathing in hot hot water. The others ranged in age from 18 to 80, and even though I was the sole foreigner (and a rather lanky and odd-looking one at that), I was treated just like everyone else. They let me go sit right next to the edge and look out at the ocean, which was rather lively that day.

After about 20 minutes, I felt relaxed and ready to continue my trip. I got out, dried off, put my clothes on and walked a bit along the cliff. I had been hoping to find a little ferry I could take out into the water, but I think the water was a bit too rough for that. The winds were at a consistent 30km/hr I’d reckon anyway.

this is the onsen (actually rotenburo) i was in. cool huh.

So I went back to the bus stop, only to see the bus pull away just before I arrived. So I waited around for about an hour for the next one. I arrived back in Shirahama, stopped at the sole food shop open, had a seafood pizza with clam, squid, and shrimp (not actually that good, but I had to do it), and then went back to the place I was staying. I had yet another bath and went to bed.

I woke up fairly early the next morning, this time looking to hit parts of the central peninsula, which was famed for its waterfalls. After a couple hours in trains and buses, I got to an area with seven waterfalls, each of them beautiful. I spend some time here, and even made my way to an onsen place with about 20 baths… two really cool ones in caves and a few looking up at a waterfall. This was cool, but it wasn’t as authentic an experience as the onsen the previous day, for here everyone wore bathing suits. While waiting back at the bus stop I sampled some wasabi ice cream. Apparently central Izu is a place where wasabi is grown, because the radishes grow well in the waters at the base of waterfalls or some such thing. I will say, there is a reason wasabi ice cream isn’t catching on. It’s cold, and at first sweet, but then it burns the throat, which seems contrary to the whole ice-cream project, which is sweet, soothing deliciousness.

I caught a bus to another waterfall, which I had to run down and see quickly because the last bus back was at like 4:45 and I really didn’t want to be stranded in the middle of the peninsula.

I arrived back, and made a sandwich in my room, read some and went to bed. I had been getting fairly lonely, speaking with no one except a few strangers in a little Japanese… and my abilities are far from being able to hold anything resembling conversation, so yeah, I felt somewhat isolated. It had been relaxing, but I was also ready to get back.

It took me some 12 hours to get back the next day, as I was taking local trains back. I do not recommend this to anyone. Really, do not do this. I did it because I had a pass that allowed me to ride the whole way back for something close to 2000 yen, which is super cheap.

After arriving back late (it was raining), I went to bed later than I shoulda and then got up super early to go to a flea market in Kyoto. This was fun, and I’m going to try to get back to another before leaving. It’s a good place to get gifts, I think.

Apparently that morning there was an earthquake (you may have heard of it, it was a 6.9 earthquake off the coast of Japan in the sea of Japan), but as near as I can tell, I was on a bus when it happened so I didn’t feel it as anything more than the normal lurching of the bus. I didn’t even know it had occurred until someone told me of it later that afternoon.

Alright folks, that was my spring break. It was fun. I’ll try to get another post out this week catching y’all up on everything since then… Himeji Castle, cherry blossoms, and this girl I met…

what is wrong with me

2007-04-22T01:27:00.000+09:00

i think it may be a sign that i've been in this country too long when i, walking by a post office from which i desperately need stamps to send postcards, declined to enter because there was no stamp vending machine and i would have to engage in human interaction. is something wrong with me? i think maybe so.

well, you've probably noticed i'm terrible at this thing (unlike my friends Lisa and Todd who, whilst being in Italy and Egypt, respectively, have still found the time to regularly post stuff). I'll get to posting my adventures later (let's hope), but now, I will just write about japan. i've lived here now 3 months, and thus am qualified to make lots of broad generalizations with far-reaching implications about this country. (yes, this is sarcasm)

first off. japanese people love mayonaise. isn't this strange? i mean, actually, it's probably not so true. i'm not really sure. but it feels like it. can i get my piece of salmon sushi smothered with mayonaise. why yes, yes i can.

also, japanese people like alcohol. ride any train in japan at night (after say 10pm) and you will see drunk japanese men (and sometimes women). they're not usually beligerent like americans when drunk, they just nod off to sleep or sing quietly to themselves. there are also no open-container laws in japan, so to see a guy pop open a can of beer on the subway or out in a public park is no big deal. did i also mention they have beer vending machines (and cigarette vending machines for that matter?)... this must inevitably lead to the following conversation:

you: "but Evan, don't they have age restrictions on who can drink and smoke?"
me: "why yes they do billy"
you: "but if they have vending machines for these things..."
me: "it's the honor system billy, the tried and true honor system."

in fact in no situation have i ever heard any of my friends being checked for id upon entering a bar or whatever here. but i think that's probably more because i think most people are afraid to ask simply because we're foreigners and, for the most part, are pitifully unable to understand the language. even though it would seem that alcohol is readily accessible by youngins here, i'm not sure if underage drinking is a big problem here. i just don't have any sense of that. drinking is a big part of the culture here (if i'm to judge by the redfaced salarymen crowding the trains late at night), but i don't know how problematic it is.

but food. yes, food. let me tell you about food. well, i should start by saying that since coming to japan, i have essentially moved to a semi-vegetarian diet. this is to say that i have pretty much stopped eating any land-based animal. i continue to eat fish, but i am not eating chicken, pork, turkey, beef or any other such thing. i'm not trying to be dogmatic about eating, and at first i did consume a little meat when it happened upon my plate due to... generally, my illiteracy, but i don't think i've consumed any more than maybe 1/8 kg of land-based meat since arriving.

it can be difficult to be a vegetarian in this country because almost everything seems to have some bit of meat in it. even the curry (not like indian style), contains tiny tiny tiny bits of beef in it, which, naturally ruins it for me. it hasn't been too bad though, and i've found out how to survive fairly well. if i was a strict vegetarian or vegan, i think it'd almost be impossible to eat out here. let''s just say that in the cafeteria at school, i'm limited in my choices to about 3 things... kakiage donburi, which is fried vegetables and partially cooked egg over rice; udon with fried tofu; soba with fried tofu. the latter two are just noodles, and i don't find myself to keen on either in their soup form.... but soba, when grilled is quite good. this is called yakisoba and it is quite tasty.

speaking of japanese foods i like, let me tell you about my new and ever growing love for a thing called okonomiyaki. now, let me also say to all of you who have eaten in a japanese restaurant in the US, and, when people ask you, "do you like any foreign foods?" and you say, "oh yeah, i like Japanese food," that you are wrong. because "japanese" restaurants in the US generally serve nothing closely resembling actual food in japan. all that stuff about hibachi and chefs who cook in front of you while making jokes... this is all a clever ruse, trying to keep you away from the experience of actual japanese cuisine. well, let me tell you about one of the pinnacles of japanese food -- okonomiyaki. okonomiyaki is often likened to a pancake or pizza, but really it's a thing unto itself. i think the name literally means something like "whatever you wanted grilled." usually though, it's cabbage, egg, a kind of dough and something (meat, shrimp, or whatever) mixed up and grilled and then smothered in mayonaise (see there it is again) and this magical brown sauce. what is this sauce. i do not know, but we are all convinced it's magic. well, yeah, i've been on a bit of an okonomiyaki streak this past week and have gone out for it some 3 times. what can i say, it's delicious. now i just need to figure out how to make it.

aside from that, i've been eating fairly well here. i cook most nights here, and, though at first i couldn't find a lot of essentials (like cheese. actual non-processed cheese does not exist in most parts of japan), i have since found an online import store which has delivered lots of food to my door (including the difficult to find peanut butter, the non-existent tortilla chips, and the essential -- cheese). so most nights it's usually something easy, like pasta or salad or a quesadilla or some kind of mix of beans and vegetables. i've experimented a bit here and successfully made a pesto pizza (can i stop to say that i've been salivating and envious reading my friend Lisa's posts about her adventures in Italy and all the pizza she's eating... pizza here is crazy expensive and strange. a large dominos pizza... which may be like a little over 36cm will run you 3500 yen. that's 30 bucks my friend. and that's highway robbery). i also tried making yakisoba this past week which wasn't as successful, but i think it's just because i overspiced it.

also, in case any of you are weirded out by my move away from meat, i haven't found it that difficult. granted the temptations i have in america... like chili dogs or pulled pork barbecue, are not to be found here, but still i think i've been doing ok, though i definitely notice that i still need to work on my food choices -- i generally don't think i'm getting enough protein, so i often have peanut butter cravings. i actually went to a vegetarian/vegan restaurant last week called cafe peace and had a veggie burger there and must say that it was better than any cow burger i've ever had. i was surprised, and i think if i can teach myself to cook well, i'll be eating better tasting, healthier (for the planet and me) overall. maybe that veggie burger woulda made a convert out of you. it was delicious. my meat eating friend kara agreed that the food was delicious, so this was not some kind of meat-deprived induced delirium i was experiencing.

well, that's all i feel like rattling off for now. i'm sorry i've been doing such a horrible job keeping this thing up, but i'll try to put in another post tomorrow, hopefully finishing off spring break and hopefully i'll have another one before week's end catching y'all up on all my other trips since then. it'll include things like a castle i visited, cherry blossoms, romance, you know, all very good things all very spring things. a new flower comes out of hiding every week.

peace and love,
Evan

neon future

2007-04-03T17:33:00.000+09:00

Hello dear readers,

Just in case you were afraid I might have fallen off the earth (being so close to the edge as I am), I have not. I have returned from spring break and already been back to school a week. The sakura (cherry trees) are blossoming, but I wanted to give y’all an update on my spring break. But, because of time constraints and the potential length of the post, I have decided to break up my trip into more manageable bits. This first part will be about my first two days in Tokyo.

I began spring break as soon as possible. After a 9am midterm (which I have since learned I aced), I returned to my dorm, packed, ate a quick lunch, and left for Kyoto to catch the Shinkansen (or “Bullet Train”) to Tokyo. I arrived at Kyoto Station an hour before my train left, unsure what the procedures were for getting on the train, only to find that it is no different than any other train (no security, nothing). So after wandering about inside the terminal, I hopped on my train, which was conveniently located near a window, and was off.

My train.

Me looking a tad too serious on said train.

The bullet train was fast, and my head began to spin as I watched the scenery pass by at an almost unintelligible rate. The businessman beside me was sleeping, and though this was tempting, given the 8am wake up, the large amounts of leg room and incredibly smooth ride, I stayed up the whole trip, looking out at the Japanese city- and country-scapes. After only 4 stops and 2 hours and 20 minutes (an average of 220km/hour!), I arrived. It took me only another 20 minutes by train and foot to find my hostel and I was set to explore the city.

The bridge over the Sumida River on the way to the hostel. This building is either for Asahi or Kirin, two big beverage companies in Japan.

I first set out for Shibuya, which is for Tokyo what Times Square is to New York. Shibuya was at the complete other side of the subway from my hostel, so I took a 40 minute subway ride (fortunately without any transfers) and was there.

After being dazzled by the neon glory, I walked down some side streets looking for a Nepalese restaurant my guide book had pointed me towards. After some difficulty, I found it and sat down. The food was delicious (which will be a recurring theme in my post about Tokyo). I had a great vegetable curry (a bit different than Indian curries that I’ve had – it was creamier) as well as samosas and a big plate of naan – all for 1,420 yen ($12US).

I was on my own so after dinner and looking around a bit more, I boarded a train back to my hostel, where I went to bed early (~10:15), hoping to get up early and go to the Fish Market in the morning.

I awoke the next morning at 6:20, and quickly (and as quietly as possible) got ready and left for the Tsukiji Fish Market. Lonely Planet had told me that this was a place I should visit, so I did. It was interesting for sure – lots of dead fish – but I’m not sure it was worth the early wakeup. Either way, I did stop for breakfast sushi (which was super expensive, 3 pieces cost me 1200 yen!), which I ate after a 40 minute wait.

Lots of dead fish. Many of them huuuuge.

In spite of all the dead fish, it didn't throw my appetite for fish. I waited in line for 40 minutes at this famous sushi place, watching some snow flurries and finding it only slightly strange to be the only foreigner amongst the queued, for three pieces of sushi that ran me close to 1200 yen (~$10). This was enough.

I stopped at Akihabara on the way to Ueno next, not because of any particular interest so much as because it was on the way. Akihabara is the famous Electronics District of Tokyo, and I’m sure if I had the desire to construct a webcam that could milk a cow while providing me with stock reports and warming my feet, I could probably find what I needed in this area. Needless to say, I have neither the desire nor the ingenuity to construct such a monster, so I did not find this area particularly interesting and really wouldn’t recommend it to anyone visiting the city.

I arrived at Ueno, which is known for its large park and museums. I was heading to the Tokyo National Museum, again at the recommendation of LonelyPlanet. This was quite a large museum, with much to see and many great works. But after an hour and a half I had my fill of art, while my stomach was reminding me that it had needs as well.

>In front of the sakura (cherry trees) in Ueno. St. Francis once asked an almond tree for a sign in the bare winter, and saw the trees bloom into their beautiful flowers. Look closely.

I headed to Asakusa, which is the district where I was staying, grabbed a quick bite of lunch at a coffee shop, which I found to be an economic option for a light eater like myself. In the area, I stopped at the Taiko-kan, or Drum Museum. I had heard this place had hundreds of drums and percussion instruments on display that all could be played. The idea of an interactive drum museum intrigued me, so I went. And indeed, there were many drums, but I was the only visitor to the museum and thus it was strangely awkward to walk around hitting drums to fill an otherwise empty room.

After some time, I left for a museum about Basho Matsuo, the famous haiku poet. He had lived in what is now Tokyo back in his time and so I wanted to pay a visit to the museum which was located in the city. It was a small museum and had practically no English (which, naturally, meant I could understand mostly nothing), but I did gain new respect for the man, as they had on display Basho’s traveling clothes. For those who are not familiar, Basho traveled hundreds of miles on foot and horseback throughout Japan. These travels served for material for his famous travelogues, including The Narrow Road to the Interior. This is what he wore, pay particular attention to his footwear.

At the museum, one woman began talking to me and asked me if I was interested in Basho. I said I did, but that I had only read his poems in English. She asked me if I thought I could, in spite of the translation, feel Basho’s “heart?” I think I can. Can you?

The horse turns his head--
from across the wide plain,
a cuckoo's cry
Matsuo Basho
Trans. Sam Hamill

She and her friend then took me and guided me along the Sumida River to where a statue of Basho sat.

It was getting a little bit late in the afternoon at this point, so I headed back to my hostel to check my e-mail and rest for a while before going out for dinner.

For dinner I went to an organic restaurant located below a children’s bookstore. I had salmon, and the food was good, but nothing spectacular.

I then returned to my hostel and went to bed.

I awoke the next morning as I was meeting Kara to explore different parts of the city. We met near Meiji Jingue Shrine, which is located in a large forest in Tokyo. Entering the shrine, it was nothing out of the ordinary (I noticed on the trip, that shrines and temples in Tokyo were generally very normal, as compared to many places in Kyoto which are quite spectacular). It was a sunny day and we were standing in the courtyard of the shrine past the main gate when we saw some other Kansai Gaidai students who were also doing spring break in Tokyo. As we talked with them, a traditional Japanese wedding procession came from one side of the shrine. We were bedazzled and quickly jumped out to take pictures. It was really cool. And, then, after a few more minutes we saw another procession in another courtyard… talk about great timing!

After departing from the shrine and other KG students, Kara and I made our way to Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street) in Harajuku, which was conveniently located next door to the shrine. This street is (in)famous for its many teenagers who dress quite strangely. Of course, we had to go. As we crossed the bridge from the shrine to Takeshita Dori over the railroad tracks, we already began seeing kids dressed up. We both glanced at one girl, and, without just the glance were able to discern that that she was a he. As we walked the street, I was a bit too shy to take strangers’ pictures, but another friend of mine took pics, so I will steal them and put them below.

This is good.

This is not.

The girl on the far right is my friend Sabina from Sweden. These are her pictures. I hope she doesn't mind me stealing them...

As you can see, this is quite quite odd, and I am fascinated by it… wondering exactly what the thought-process is behind these sometimes cool, moreoften tacky costumes.

In addition to walking the streets, we also peaked in some stores. I had hoped to maybe find some cool t-shirts with terrible english on them as gifts, but alas, it seems the fashion these days is authentic used american clothing. you know, the boring Champion sweater or University of Michigan t-shirt you have in your closet but never wear because it's just so boring.

Let's say I'm a Japanese girl and want to decorate my room. What ever shall I use? A poster. Nah, too cliche. Paint, too time consuming. Wait, I have it, a North Carolina License Plate!

If I were a Japanese teenage guy and wanted to show off to all how worldwise and hip I was, what ever could I wear. Why, maybe some threads from the Apex Volunteer Fire Department?

After Harajuku, we walked around a bit and stopped off at an organic café for lunch. This was a cool place, perched atop a small building, and they served good food for reasonable prices. But it was also a bit odd. I saw one woman who brought her little dog in the place. She even had a bag for the dog that she would use to carry it around. Ok, that’s more just a weird person that having anything to do with the café, but in one corner of the place, there was an mannequin sitting at a table and holding a cup of coffee and with a tv screen for a face (that would blink and look around and what not. And the people who, by some chance of fate, had to sit at that table had to sit with this artificial person.

After that we were off to Odaiba, which is an island located in the bay of the city. Odaiba is home to museums and cool buildings. We were going to the Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation to see robots and other cool things. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to see the ASIMO demonstration, but we were able to wave to him behind his glass enclosure as he looked up at us, as if pondering these strangers.

After this, we went towards Toyota MegaWeb, which is essentially a Toyota showroom but with cool things like a simulator ride and the opportunity to ride in a car that drove itself around a track. Kara had to go soon, so we only passed through on our way to something like the world’s second largest ferris wheel. Because really, how could we pass up such a thing… the world’s largest ferris wheel overlooking Tokyo at sunset. Pretty cool, right? Yeah it was.

After this Kara had to leave to return to the family she was staying with for dinner, leaving me alone (again) in Tokyo. I wondered about for a while before heading to Roppongi for dinner at an Italian restaurant. After eating, I went to Shinjuku to go to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building’s free 45th floor observatory.

I will try to post parts two and three of my spring break in the coming days, but given time constraints and the blossoming cherry trees (which will reach their peak this coming weekend), those posts may be delayed. Don’t fear, I’ll get them up eventually. Until then…

spring break

2007-03-24T22:02:00.000+09:00

hey folks,

after a 12 hour journey, i am finally back. i will write more when i have the energy, but as a taste...

tomorrow i go to a flea market in kyoto. i hope to find good gifts.

peace,
Evan

warming up

2007-03-07T21:00:00.000+09:00

This spring scenery
has been properly prepared:
moon and plum blossoms

Basho Matsuo

So a couple weeks ago was a little thing called Hinamatsuri, which is the Doll Festival here in Japan. Now this is generally a festival geared towards females, but my friend Daniel's host mother invited the Swedes to come over for a dinner to celebrate the festival. One of the Swedes couldn't make it, so I filled in as the surrogate Swede.

The dinner had rice, fish, pizza(?yeah, weird), chips, chocolate, green tea, and naturally, sake. In addition to the regular sake, there was also a thick, milky white drink. I'm not sure what this was, but I do know it involved alcohol.

The dinner was nice and Japanese was spoken the whole time. My Japanese is not nearly at the level to be able to participate in the conversation, but I was able to float along the river without getting caught on too many rocks. It was good listening practice, and fun.

From left to right: Niklas, Daniel (not the Daniel), Daniel's (different from previous) host mother, Yukka (a Japanese friend of ours), and me with a bad bad bad hair day... eee!)

Hannah-chan, a little doggy who sat around the table while we were eating and whined and whined for food. She never barked, she just sounded like a little child making a closed-lipped "awwwww" sound.

dinner

Daniel's host mother serving us matcha (Japanese powdered green tea).

Afterwards, we went to play pool down in Hirakata.

But after a game we thought we'd try karaoke (which we could do at the same place). And so it was that I discovered karaoke. A little clarification probably needs to be made here, as my parents were a bit confused about this. Karaoke (there is no "e" the pronounciation -- or in the spelling -- kah rah oo kay) in Japan is found in two forms. One is the kind that you might find in the US -- a bar where people get up in front of all the bar-goers and sing a song. The second kind, which is the most common here, is where you and a few friends go to a room and sing songs (think the karaoke scene in Lost in Translation, minus windows). This is less intimidating and more fun. I mean, I know it sounds kind of, um, pathetic... 6 people in a dark room doing bad version of Beatles classics, but it's actually quite fun, especially when the Swedes do Circle of Life from the Lion King.... in Swedish.

After maybe 3 hours of karaoke, I came home and got an e-mail from my friend Nari. Apparently he and some others were going hiking in the morning, and well, even though it was already 3am, I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity, so I bunked down and got a few hours of sleep before getting up to go to Kurama (a town north of Kyoto).

We actually began from a town near Kurama called Kibune. Here, our guide, the trustworthy Nari led us up the mountain while telling us about Tengu, a spirit, who had taught him how to climb the mountain. Nari also told us of a great warrior who was buried here after having been slain by his brother. It was a gorgeous day for hiking, sunny and at least 20˚C. It was probably the warmest day we've had yet, and after the taste, I'm ready for spring and for the warmth it will (hopefully) bring.

Now Nari had been telling us about a cafe we would find at the end of the hike where we could eat a traditional Japanese sweet. This sounded good so we stopped at the place and had a thing called Mochi. Now, this was not my first encounter with Mochi, but it was a unique one. Mochi is essentially rice gluten and it is super sticky and gelatin like (only with a viscousity about 70 times that of regular gelatin). This is a very popular thing here, and while it tastes pretty good, it's a bit hard to swallow (literally!). But it was good nonetheless, as every new experience is always worthwhile.

This is a Japanese mythological creature called a Tengu. Interesting, eh?

The next week was classes. And then this past weekend was pretty easy going. On Friday we did another 3 hours of karaoke (of which I have video, but gosh, that'd be awful). The only downside was I lost my wonderful hat. Yes, my hat, the cool one. I went searching for it Saturday, but to no avail.

Saturday was spent relaxing and reading, and then I met up with some friends and we made chocolate scones, watched a movie, and then went out for a few hours.

Originally I wanted to go to Himeji on Sunday to see a castle, but Kara insisted that was too far (about 2 hours) to go on the weekend before midterms. So instead we went to Nara that evening for Omizutori, a festival where monks light giant torches on fire and run across the balcony. Additionally they pray for the forgiveness of the sins of humanity and for world peace and happiness. This is a festival that's been held since 752 or something like that. Yes! 752 C.E. Like 1255 years!

We got there about 1 hour before it was to start, which was good because it afforded us a good spot to watch and we also got to meet a Japanese couple from Rokko (a town at the base of Mt. Rokko, which Kara and I had ascended a couple of weeks earlier). They were very nice and the husband spoke English and was trying to help us by speaking with us in Japanese. This was nice, but he spoke mainly to Kara because I was a bit too tall (he didn't say this, but I think it was just easier for him to talk with someone at eye level).

The temple before the sunset and the fire began.

The festival was spectacular. I have video of it, which eventually y'all will see (though maybe not in internet form). It also explains to me why so many of these temples that I'm visiting were at one point in their history burned down by fire... because of foolishly awesome festivals like this. As they'd run across the balcony other monks would be ferociously sweeping the embers off and when a large chunk would drop they would run and pick it up with their hands and throw it over the edge. It was crazy-awesome. It was really cool.

My friend Kara can draw really really well. Here's some sketches she did of me and Daniel. You can probably identify me by my hat, may it be warming some other head now.

Well, that's about all for now. It's midterms this week, so I'm a bit busy with all that. Friday is the beginning of spring break and I'm going to Tokyo for about 5 days. After that I'm going to the Izu Peninsula to unwind, read, and hit up some onsen (hot spring baths).

City Lights, Sake, Kobe, and Plum Blossoms

2007-02-27T17:46:00.000+09:00

Satellites Engaged. Alright, everyone, after a delay (due to, uhhh, uhhh, solar flares?) I’m beaming y’all another great post from the other side of the globe.

It has been some time, so there is much to catch up.

Well, on the Friday before last (that’d be about February 16), I went down to Osaka with my friend Kara to hit up Shinsaibashi, which is one of the big shopping districts of Osaka. Now, I have mentioned before that I don’t have the taste for such things, but I, too, get a little starry eyed at the sight of neon lights and was looking for a change of pace from the temples, so this seemed like the prime spot for such aimless wandering.

America Mura at dusk

We left after classes and got there about mid-afternoon, in time to roam a bit in daylight. We started off in America Mura, which I suppose is analogous to Chinatown in New York, except this was America Town in Japan. I’m not sure though, it didn’t seem particularly different from other places… just filled with a bunch of shops selling Levi’s Jeans, Abercrombie and Fitch, and the obligatory McDonalds (but those are everywhere here, and I mean everywhere, along with Starbucks). They did have a miniature Statue of Liberty, though. And then atop another building was a flashing neon sign that called on people to “Stop AIDS!” through the use of condoms. This seemed rather peculiar, but what would seem unusual mediums for communication here are fairly typical.

For example, political candidates will have vans with loudspeakers that drive around the city while someone touts the candidate over the PA. Now I have no idea when the next election is in this country, and it may not even be soon, but they’re out there campaigning nonetheless. And why being obnoxious would win candidates votes, especially in a place that seems to appreciate quiet so much, is beyond me.

Also, it is quite common when exiting a subway or train station to walk by a person handing out small packs of tissues. This is convenient not simply because it is the cold-season, but also because many public restrooms here do not have toilet paper. But tucked away in each tissue pack are advertisements. It’s a win-win situation – people get tissues, the companies get advertising that won’t be chucked at the next available public wastebasket (though those, too, are rare here). So I suppose if there’s going to be a neon light sign telling people to use condoms, Japan would be the place for it.

After quickly passing America Mura, we wandered a bit further and found the Apple Store in Osaka. It looks neat from the outside, but it’s really no different than any other Apple store in the world.

And then we came across a giant covered mall in the area. Also close by were restaurants that serve that Japanese delicacy of pufferfish which must be cut and prepared the right way or else you will die. Yes, die. It sounds a bit risky, but no one has died for more than 30 years from it, so perhaps it’s not so bad. Either way, I’m still not lining up to try it.

We wandered a bit and found a street that began with restaurants and ended with love hotels. Now love hotels are a bit of an oddity. They are hotels that are made for couples to well, “spend time together.” People can either rent rooms for the night or for a three hour “rest.” I am honestly not sure what to think of these. On the one hand, it strikes me as being almost sleazy. But then again, Japan is a highly populated area with small houses and apartments spaced close together (and often with thin walls without insulation). This means that people aren’t afforded much in the way of privacy (this is also why it’s rude to be walking the streets at night making much more than a whisper… because people inside can usually hear just about everything going on outside). Also because space is limited, there are many lounges in Japan that simply provide people with a space to play pool, read manga, surf the internet and generally hang out with friends for some amount of money per hour. This would also seem to be in response to the lack of space in homes for say, hanging out with friends in relative privacy from parents, neighbors, siblings, etc. Given all this, it would almost seem that the love hotel concept is born out of a kind of need (and I won’t make any comment on the value of such a need) that seems legit, but that didn’t make it feel any less strange to mine American eyes.

We stopped for some food here and there and continued walking, and this time, we really hit the gutter. We found ourselves on a street of host and hostess bars. These are essentially bars where women (though there are host bars that do the opposite) are dolled up and paid to flirt with men while they drink and whatnot. I don’t know if that sounds as bad as it looked, but it wasn’t good. We snapped a few pictures of the area for laughs and headed out quickly, before all daylight vanished.

And then we were back in the main plaza, where everything was lit up like the fourth of July.

It was a fun stroll through a part of Osaka we hadn’t seen, but we were getting tired so we met up with Daniel (who had unsuccessfully tried to visit Osaka Castle that afternoon) and went to an Izakaya near Makino and just sat around and hung out for the evening.

Saturday was rainy, very, very rainy. And cold. But I had signed up to learn to roll sushi, and I wasn’t about to let the rain stop me. So I went to campus and met the group. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t so much rolling sushi (with a bamboo roller or some such thing), so much as it was stuff as much stuff as you can on seaweed and rice and roll it and eat it like a sandwich. I was a bit disappointed, but, as John Lennon would say, “Ooh ba dee, Ooh ba daa, life goes on.”

I had made plans with Daniel and Kara to meet them and the Swedes and some others for karaoke Saturday night, but when we got to the karaoke place, it was much more expensive than we had anticipated and we were all a bit drained from the weather, so Kara, Daniel and I headed off to grab dinner (I haven’t done karaoke yet, but don’t worry, maybe this next weekend). We wandered around in a bookstore after dinner to see if the karaoke people wanted to do something when they were finished, but they weren’t interested so the three of headed up to the izakaya across from campus where we had originally gone. Here we found that the guy who waited on us was also a Gaidai student studying English. We invited him to join us at our table and we talked for a while with him. He’s probably the most fluent Japanese student we’ve met in terms of pronunciation and naturalness of speech, which he explained is because he spent his elementary school years in the United States.

Daniel, again unable to just smile

Super Happy Kara and "Blue Steel" Evan

That Sunday, I didn’t do too much. I mostly took the day to relax, shower, and piddle around the dorm. It was good to relax.

Monday, after classes, Daniel and I headed to Kyoto to go to the Joanna Newsom concert. Now, if you are unfamiliar with Joanna Newsom, she is an American artist who plays the harp and sings. She has quite an unusual voice, and many people are put off by it, but it is truly beautiful. The concert took place on the third floor a building in what appeared to be a loft apartment converted into a bar/hipster hangout. It was a very nice venue, but also super chic. I’m talking people wearing thick rimmed glasses on their noses and high brow opinions on their sleeves. But I’m judging too much, but it had that vibe to it (at least among some of the non-Japanese there).

But, after the two openers (one of which was a Japanese couple that played great music on an accordion and upright bass), Joanna Newsom and her two person band came on. After a set that lasted a bit over an hour plus an encore, Daniel and I rode the train back home smiling and resting in the resonance of the divine music we had just heard. It was an amazing concert, and certainly one of the best I have been to. I even have a little video from the concert for you:

"Peach, Plum, Pear"

"This Side of the Blue"

The rest of the week was school as usual. I’m finding my classes here are pretty lax. Japanese is great and fun, but not too much trouble. Sumi-e is mostly an in-class affair, so I don’t have to worry with it outside of our thrice weekly 90 minute meetings. And Death in East Asian thought is generally a disappointment, but it’s easy enough, and that I am glad about because I’d much rather be out enjoying Japan and seeing it first hand than sitting in my dorm reading about it.

This past weekend, I went to eat Chinese food with Kara on Friday night and then just chilled on my own that evening. I’ve begun making plans for Spring Break, and I’m getting pretty excited about. My plan right now is to go to Tokyo for a few days before heading to the Izu Peninsula (a little ways outside of Tokyo south of Fuji) which is known for its beautiful coastline and many onsen (hot spring baths). So I’ll have a taste of the quick and fast-paced Tokyo life along with time for taking things slow and relaxing at Izu. While in the area, I also want to try to make it up to Mt. Fuji to get a few good views of the mountain. It’s too cold to climb (ice and snow and dangerous conditions) until July, so I’ll have to forego that, but it should still be fun.

Kobe

Earthquake Museum

But anyhow, on Saturday Kara and I met up early and headed towards Kobe (yes the “Kobe beef” Kobe), which is west of Osaka by maybe 20 km. Our first stop was at a strange museum. Well, I say strange, but really only one half of it was unusual. The first half was about the Kobe Earthquake which occurred early in the morning on January 17, 1995. It was a 7.0 on the richter scale and after seeing the opening presentation which simulates the images and sounds of the Earthquake, any small desire I may have had for a little tremor while here vanished (we have been fortunate to not experience any noticeable earthquakes or tremors thus far). It seemed to be truly frightening. What was most interesting about the museum was a volunteer who guided us through and told us stories about the earthquake, including a man who had woken a few minutes before the quake and noticed his cat was freaking out. Then, for some reason, he put on his work helmet, which, when the quake struck, saved his life. The volunteer was an old gentleman (77 years old he told us, but he looked younger) who spoke English and helped us through.

The second of half the museum, which is housed in a separate building next to the earthquake museum, was truly wild. It was called the “Human Renovation Institute” and it was all about exploring the human experience (I suppose?) and how we should live in harmony with nature. It was a strangely new-agey concept packed into a well-budgeted museum. I still don’t quite understand. Just to give you some idea of the museum, there was one room where people would stand around a glass orb with various metal sensors which would be pressed rhythmically in hopes of making music together.

Everyone enjoying the world of sounds and making resonance of minds makes this “Square” into a place of interchange, creating a new circle of companions.

Rhythms made by sounds, especially musical rhythms, create emotional rhythms within the listener’s mind, and they resonate in the minds of the surrounding people. All the dances known in the world were born from these resonances of mind.

Sign at the Entrance to the Music Room

Unfortunately the actual experience was not as cool as it could have been, but it was still an interesting place to visit. The museum was filled with many signs that had English as well as Japanese, except the English was always somewhat awkward (like above), but still, strangely poetic… maybe?

We stopped at the café downstairs for a quick lunch (which was surprisingly inexpensive). There we saw our guide eating lunch too. He gave us his name card and we thanked him and left.

Our next stop was a sake brewery museum. Kobe’s Nada district is known for its many sake breweries, so we decided we’d go tour one of them. We ended up at the Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Museum, which we chose because we heard there was English information there. We toured the museum (which was free), which had a number of videos (narrated in English by a woman who sounded far too proper) explaining the process. Apparently sake is the most difficult thing in the world to make, involving so many steps I couldn’t keep it straight. I seriously wonder how anyone stumbled across it (it involves preparing rice in a particular fashion, adding mold, preparing other rice to ferment, mixing stuff, squeezing things, and saying magical incantations… did I mention that it can only be done every third Sunday of every other even numbered year?). Seriously, it was ridiculous. But it was interesting to be sure. We rounded off the tour by sampling some sake they had out for free. If you’ve never had sake, it’s tastes a bit like medicine.

Me at the Sake Brewery Museum. They do say the camera adds 10cm.

But the best part of the museum was not the museum itself, but a brochure they gave us that was produced by an association of Nada no Sake breweries (Sake breweries in the Nada District). This brochure, of which we received the English version, makes all sorts of absolutely ridiculous claims about sake. On the opening page, these 10 “virtues” of sake are listed (this is verbatim):

1. Sake can be better for health than any medicine
2. Sake will enable you to live longer.
3. Sake will recover you from fatigue and weariness
4. Sake will drive gloom away and cheer you up
5. You can make friends with anyone once you drink Sake with the person
6. Sake will create the atmosphere where everyone can express their opinions frankly even to their bosses or seniors.
7. Sake will be a good friend for people who live alone
8. Sake will make you feel warm to endure cold weathers
9. Sake can turn as a handy but nourishing meal during a trip.
10. Sake will be a good present when you visit any person

Now, maybe we can forgive this a bit because it’s actually a quote from a play written in about the 14th and 15th century, but the pamphlet goes on its FAQ…

Q: I am afraid that drinking Sake may invite ailments on such organs as liver, heart and arteries.

A: You never have to worry about that. On contrary, Sake is good for health as long as you keep the appropriate amount of drinking. From the old times the Japanese have called Sake one of the best medicines, and advanced studies in medical and other sciences today explain how Sake contributes to the health.

The brochure then goes on to say that Sake can help decrease the chances of getting liver cancer. I can only hope that no one takes this seriously. But the brochure was hilarious (and that’s not the half of it).

It was getting late in the afternoon and we wanted to go up Rokko-san, a mountain overlooking Osaka Bay, Kobe, and Osaka. I had heard it was one of the top three night views in all of Japan. So took a couple of trains and a bus to the cable car station that took us to the summit (~990meters up I think). We arrived as the sun was setting, and the view was beautiful. Kara was anxious to get down because it was cold (it started snowing a little bit) and because she wanted to get to Chinatown in time for the dragon dance (in celebration of the Chinese New Year). But I was insistent that we stay ‘til it got dark and the cities light up. So we got some hot canned coffee out of a vending machine (which was surprisingly tasty) and tried to stay warm. We were rewarded with a stunning view (which a picture couldn’t do justice, we’re talking a total 180 degrees).

We took the cable car back down and tried to warm up. We scrambled to China town (leaving the area at about 6:50, ten minutes to the start time of the dragon dance). We arrived in Chinatown (Nankimachi) at 7:12, just as the dragon dance was starting.

When the dance finished we left to head to the Harbor for dinner. At the Harbor (called Harbor Land, or in Japanese pronounciation, “Haabo Rando”), we began to feel like we were in Florida, or in some coastal resort town in the states. There was a small amusement park, palm trees, and a general resort town vibe.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that all the restaurants were all quite affordable, and we decided on a Korean place. I had some Kim-Chi, Rice, as well as Ika Chijima (ika = squid; chijima = pancake shape combo of fish, vegetables, and whatnot… but nothing like okonomiyaki; this was more “bread” based that cabbage-based). It was quite good and only ran us about 1300 yen a piece (~$10.50), which is a steal in Japan for dinner (plus tipping is never done here).

Our waitress, we found out, was also a Kansai Gaidai student studying English. We thought this was quite the coincidence, seeing as we were over an hour away from Hirakata in a city of over a million people and we would happen to walk into a restaurant with a Gaidai student (there are about 14,000 Gaidai students total).

We returned home on a train with some slightly drunken Japanese salarymen (a not uncommon sight after about 10pm on the trains) and went our separate ways.

Sunday, I was set to meet my speaking partner, Yukie to visit Nanzen-ji temple in Kyoto. But before that, I wanted to buy my Shinkansen (Bullet Train) ticket for Tokyo. This I managed to do all in Japanese, without any difficulty. The trip will only take 2 hours and 20 minutes from Kyoto, which means we’ll be going very fast. The tickets are expensive, but the alternatives are a night bus or local trains which would take about 8 hours to do, and I’d like to ride the bullet train once and also not start spring break tired from traveling. On the way back, I’m going on the cheap, taking local trains to the Izu Peninsula and then through Nagoya and back to Kyoto (this I can do for very cheap… ~3200 yen because I bought a special discount pass).

I met Yukie and we went to Nanzen-ji. She had just recently gone to Universal Studies in Osaka (yes, there’s one in Osaka) and brought me a gift of Spiderman socks (about which I later wondered if she was making a joke considering my last name…). This may seem unusual to you, but I’m quickly learning that gift giving is a very, very common practice here. If I go to say, Kobe, I should think about buying a gift for friends or family on my return. But, I didn’t think about this, so yeah.

After arriving by bus, we walked around the temple area in mostly silence, stopping to see some gardens. I’m afraid I may have suggested a bad place for Yukie and me to visit because I was not sure that she was really interested in temples and with our language skills lacking we didn’t have much to say. When we had seen our fill, we continued to Heian Shrine which we visited rather quickly. It was about 4 at this point and we stood near a map while Yukie looked for something else to do. This I think was more a gesture of politeness, because I was feeling like it was time to call it a day, but I wasn’t quite sure how to word it in Japanese or English such that it could be understood (how do you translate “call it a day” to Japanese… I certainly don’t know). After finally figuring it out, Yukie agreed, looking like she was glad that I had said this. I fear that she would have continued wandering around with me out of some feeling of obligation even if she wanted to leave. This is another area where communication is difficult not only for a lack of language skills, but also cultural understanding of what is appropriate, polite, etc. I especially felt bad about this, and I think I may have kept her busy for too long and made her walk more than she wanted to, especially because she was wearing heels.

Which brings us to this topic: heels. In Japan, almost all the women (or at least all the females at Gaidai) wear heels (many of them high) almost every day. This is bad enough, as I’m sure it’s not comfortable, but what makes it even more absurd is that many of them cannot seem to properly walk in them, meaning that they struggle, toes pointed inward, to awkwardly waddle around on them. It’s not as bad as it may sound, but it certainly is an unfortunate social expectation that viewed from the outside is almost laughable as the practicality of high heels as footwear is clearly revealed as being nonexistent.

Then last night I met up with Daniel, Kara, and Kentaro (the waiter at the izakaya from a week before) near Hirakata station to play pool. We ate some dinner and then went to the pool hall, which is actually one of those hangout/lounges I mentioned earlier, where you pay some 100yen per 15 minutes to play pool, ping pong, read manga, do karaoke, surf the internet, and yes, even, take a shower (they had shower rooms, which I didn’t quite understand). They give you free soft drinks while there, making it a pretty nice place to hang out.

But that’s about all for now. I’m not sure what my plans are for this upcoming weekend. If the weather’s nice, there’s been a little talk of doing a picnic down by the Kamogawa (Kamo River) in Kyoto and then maybe Karaoke on Saturday.

Also, the plum blossoms are out.

I did not expect
To be intoxicated
Sweet pink plum blossoms

stairs above the city

2007-02-14T20:57:00.000+09:00

Friday, I had signed up to go to Osaka to see a 1950s black & white Japanese movie that had been subtitled. This was an activity for free offered by the CIE (Center for International Education) at Kansai Gaidai University. But my friends (Daniel, Kara, Niklas, Arum, and Tommy) were going to Osaka to see a current movie so I dropped the free and understandable movie for a much more expensive (1500 yen with a student discount; ~ 12.35) and unintelligible movie (due to my lack of Japanese ability). The movie was Letters from Iwa Jima (or いわじまからてがみ – Iwa Jima kara tegami), and unlike the U.S. release of this movie, there were no subtitles (because the people here, strangely enough, know Japanese).

And what better prologue is there to talking about a movie about than a tale of a failure of communication.

The other day I went grocery shopping with my friend from South Korea, Arum. She and I bought a large (5 kilo) bag of rice. But other than that, I was hoping to buy sugar with which I planned on sweetening some tea. I bought sugar (or what I thought was sugar), and returned back to the dormitory to try it out. Now, I have, for one reason or another (perhaps illiteracy, perhaps sheer lack) I have been unable to find black tea with which to make sweet tea (which was my goal all along). So I bought some organic barley tea the other day, which was pictured on ice in a tropical locale. I am quite certain that I bought this simply because of the colorful packaging and picture resembling what I know and love as tea, not because I believed there would be any resemblance. So I was brewing up this barley tea (strange, eh) and began adding some sugar. I added a few spoonfuls, stirred it and brought out a spoonful to taste its sweetness. I gulped it down, and thought to myself, “My, this barley tea sure is salty.” Only after a few moments did it dawn on me that what I thought to be sugar was actually salt and I was salting my tea and not adding sugar to it. It should be noted that this mishap was not for lack of Japanese knowledge (I know the words for sugar and salt and can read both… at least I think I can), but was out of mere carelessness.

Now before I talk about Osaka, I should do a bit to clear up some confusion. I think some have the impression that I am studying in Osaka. This is both true and false. Kansai Gaidai University is in Osaka Prefecture (akin to the US’ counties or states), but it is not in Osaka city (which was I am referring to whenever I say “Osaka”). Rather, KG and my Seminar House (the dorm where I live) are located in a city in between Osaka and Kyoto named Hirakata.

So we arrived in Osaka and found the theater (on the 8th and 9th floors of a very tall building) and bought our tickets. We had about an hour and a half before the movie, so we went out to buy some dinner. And what did we find but a Subway (yes, the sandwich shop). So we indulged our (mostly) western tastes in something familiar (I had a vegetable sandwich that was delightful) and inexpensive. Could it be that a western chain is cheaper in the 2nd most expensive city in the world, I think so.

After lingering for a few minutes after dinner for some of our kids to get their ice cream fix, we returned to the theater.

The movie, which was almost all in Japanese, was largely incomprehensible (in terms of dialogue), but this didn’t keep me from understanding the story or what was going on with the characters (thanks in part to some great acting)… I could even deduce some of the dialogue even if I couldn’t catch many words.

Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the movie going experience was how quiet it was. In the silences before the opening preview, I didn’t hear anyone shift in their seat, munch on popcorn (they had it, but must have been eating with, pardon my terrible stereotype, ninja-like stealth), whisper to their neighbor. This seemed to be the atmosphere throughout the movie though, because of the tragic nature of the film, my friends reported that some were crying (I was tearing up quite a bit too).

After this experience, we didn’t know what to do. The night was young (~9:30) and we were in a major metropolitan city at the peak of our youth. But we had no idea what to do, so we returned to Hirakata and found an izakaya near campus.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, an izakaya is the equivalent of a Japanese tavern. You sit on the floor around a low table and can order all sorts of food (from sashimi to French fries) and drinks. I also commented before that Japan seems to close down early. This is not actually the case. There are many of these izakayas throughout all neighborhoods I have traveled through, but they are not the “bumping” clubs and bars of the west, but quiet hangouts open late.

My friends, Daniel (who can't take a good picture it seems), Arum (who is afraid of having her picture taken), and Tommy (a very funny guy) at the izakaya on Friday night.

We had the second floor to ourselves, and we ordered some food and drinks and spent a couple of great hours talking and laughing and having a good time.

On Saturday, I took the Sabbath to rest and catch up on some homework. This was nice.

On Sunday, I went with my friend Kara to Nara. Connecting to another train line in Kyoto, we arrived in Nara in about an hour. Going to Nara, I expected two things – some deer and a giant Buddha. We found these things came in larger proportions than we realized.

Not ten minutes out the station and we spotted the first of what would be many many free-roaming deer. Some children were feeding two deer alongside a path. Nara is famous for its deer which roam freely throughout the very large park district of the city. The reason for this is that there is a local legend that the god of the famous Shinto shrine in the area, Kasuga Taisha, rode in on a white deer. From then on, deer have been revered here, leading to a tribe of literally thousands of deer that just hang out here.

After walking a bit further, we began to realize how many deer there were – lots! And they are all very tame and people-friendly (as people feed them). We could go up to deer and pet them without them flinching or even seeming to care. It was very cool to see this kind of interspecies community. I wonder what other interspecies communities are possible. Or, perhaps, I wonder how interspecies communities can be brought back to prevalence. Our ancestors of old had to live in harmony with the forces of the wild, while now we strive to keep all things wild outside the city gates, cordoning ourselves off from “nature.” This gate, of course, is illusory.

a deer stands to pose with a group for photo

We arrived at Todaiji, which features the two guardian gods I mentioned in my previous post, only in larger form, and the largest wooden structure in the world. This massive temple is the largest wooden structure in the world.

The temple, being so big, houses the largest Buddha in Japan (Daibutsu – literally, Big Buddha), which simply has to be seen to be believed. Kara and I stopped at the massive figure, made a prayer for the awakening of the Compassionate One within all beings, and continued around the Buddha and his many attendant Bodhisattvas (this a term assigned to those who, at the gates of Nirvana, step back to show others the way).

We returned to the station to find an ATM and grab a quick lunch (Donburi) before going to the National Museum, which houses a great collection of ancient Buddhist statues and art. It’s very hard to look at a figure in front of one and know (in that truly knowing way) something to be 1,200 years old. It is hard to even imagine my own twenty years, let alone the years of many beings great and small that have come and gone in the lifetime of a wooden carving of Buddha, or how many statues will come and go in the lifetime of the earth, or how many earths will come and go in the course of time.

We walked around Nara for a while, admiring the deer, stopped in a Kasuga Taisha shrine for a moment, and, with tired legs, returned to the train station to get back to Hirakata by 6:30.

Unfortunately I spent Sunday night much like Saturday night, by myself and bored. I spent a good while trying to figure out what to do Monday (Monday was a national holiday for Foundation Day which commemorates… I don’t know what). Having done temple after temple after temple in my sightseeing and spending so much time in the city, I wanted none of that.

I began to long for trees and fresh air, having taken for granted growing up in a house in the woods where the trees greeted me every morning in every season right outside the living. So in the morning, I put a book of poetry in my pack and took off, determined to hike up Daimonji, a hill above Kyoto with the kanji (Chinese character) for “big” carved into its face.

I arrived at Ginkakuji, behind of which the trail began, and, with little difficulty, was able to find the trailhead, despite the lack of signs to it. I found myself amongst others, almost all Japanese (which is usually the case, though occasionally at touristy places there will be another foreigner in the crowd) of all ages (8-80) hiking up and down the mountain (it’s not technically a mountain). As I hiked up, every person I passed greeted me with
a smile and a “Konnichiwa” (Good afternoon). This had been the first time I had been greeted by strangers while out and about.

The climb was tough, but it wasn't long, as I made it to the top in 45 minutes. I sat down and drank some cool tea and ate some snacks and enjoyed the breathtaking view. It was so broad, it was impossible to take a good picture.

I spent about an hour or so just hanging around, sitting, watching, and leisurely reading through a book of poems my friend Mike Neely had given me before my departure.

If you could turn your heart
into a cowstall,
Christ would be born again on earth!
-Angelius Silesius

I continued up the open side of the mountain to a path that continued on into the woods above. I did not know where this led, as there was no map, so I began following it out of curiosity. I made my way along the path which seemed to follow the ridgeline until I came to a clearing with benches where a couple of people were sitting down and talking. They made room for me and I sat to rest and look out again, this time being able to see another city on the other side of some hills from Kyoto. After a while, the man to my right pulled out some chocolate covered peanuts from his pack and passed them around for all of us to enjoy. This was a great snack, and I was impressed with the atmosphere of kinship among hikers.

After a while, I decided that while the trail continued I ought to head back, as I did not want to be lost in the forest after sunset. I returned and got back to Hirakata in time to make some spaghetti for dinner.

So far this week has been pretty easy and fun (it's already Friday tomorrow!). My classes are fairly easy, though Japanese keeps me challenged. My class, "Death in East Asian Thought," has largely been a disappointment, as the professor is rather spacy and jumps around so much there that is no seeming coherence. The class is more a gathering of people who read an article and then superficially "discuss" it (while being interuppted by the professor every other word) without any clear question or framework. I'm still hoping I can drive the class in certain directions and ask good questions to the class to compensate for the lack of such things on the part of the professor.

And last night I went to a small cafe where a couple of people from KG were playing guitars and singing (including the Italian guy who lives next door to me). It was a fun outing, but the highlight was probably when one of the guys (who is Scottish with a strong Scottish accent) played an acoustic version of "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. Yes, that was quite hilarious.

And tomorrow is the beginning of the weekend. During the day Saturday I'm learning to roll sushi, so that will be quite awesome (I'll bring back that skill to the states... I also ought to figure out Donburi and Okonomiyaki, both of which should be easy enough). I've also already made plans on Saturday night so I won't be left doing nothing (though so far the plans have not progressed beyond "getting together with friends and doing something"). And I was going to a pizza party that my speaking partner invited me to tomorrow night, but that, unfortunately has been cancelled. Alas, I will find someting.

That's about all for now and from here. I might do another quick update on Saturday with something. Until then, さようなら (sayoonara).

the land of a thousand temples

2007-02-04T21:49:00.000+09:00

This was quite an eventful weekend. After the first week of classes, I dropped my schoolwork and went off to explore the area.

On Friday I went to Kyoto with some people who invited me to go along with them to see Kyomizu-dera, a famous temple. After leaving campus at one, we didn’t get to Kyoto until around two (we walked to the rail station from campus – about a mile). The others had not eaten lunch and wanted to eat okonomiyaki, so we stopped at a place near the rail station in Kyoto. We had been fortunate to run into a couple of Japanese students on campus who were going to Kyomizu as well. It is always helpful to have native speakers when going to, say, a restaurant, to translate for waiters or interpret the menu and whatnot. The okonomiyaki place was pretty reasonably priced (700-800 yen for a large serving) and had a lot of options. Two of us had already eaten lunch, so we decided we’d split one as a mid-afternoon snack. Whereas at the other places I’ve gone for okonomiyaki, they cooked it for you, here we were given a bowl with all the ingredients and let loose to cook it ourselves. We were pretty hesitant through the whole process, and Joanna (the girl with whom I split the dish) and I failed completely in flipping it. In spite of this, everything was edible and it was quite good. But after all this okonomiyaki, I’m ready to give it up for a few weeks.

By the time we were finished, it was really late… almost four o’clock. We rushed towards Kyomizu, hoping to catch it before the sunset and the gates closed. The temple is famous for two reasons. The first is that it was built on the side of the mountain on a wooden platform on stilts, which is pretty impressive. The second is that from the mountain there is a spring that feeds three bamboo chutes that pour down into a pool. It is said that if you drink from all three of them, you will have health, wealth, and love. They have long-handled ladels with which visitors can drink from the springs.

The group split up on the trek through the streets up the hill to the temple, but I arrived as the sun was setting. I was able to get in and see the temple and Kyoto as in the last light of the day.

At the bottom of the temple is the spring, and I wasn’t about to refuse the water after all that effort. So I drank from the middle one. It was only later that I was informed that one must drink from all three to get the blessings of all… turns out I drank from the one for health, which is fine by me.

On Saturday I met Daniel and Daniel (yes, there are two… and both from Sweden; in fact every other guy here is named Daniel. It’s a strange and perplexing phenomena, but Japan is apparently a haven for gaijin named Daniel) at Hirakata-shi Station (after a fairly long and awkard two-mile walk from the Seminar House) to head to Osaka. This weekend was setsubun, which I believe marks the beginning of spring in the traditional Japanese calendar. On this day, people throw beans (which represent bad fortune and spirits) in a kind of purging ritual, and then they eat them. Actually, the plan was to go to a temple that was holding an event of this kind. But apparently we were given some misinformation and things weren’t happening as thought. So we were left to go shopping.

Don't let yourself be confused. They are floors and not circles. And they don’t descend through the earth, but ascend towards the heavens in a vain attempt to touch them.

The first floor of hell is the computing department. Here, poor souls are bombarded with a constant stream of terribly similar pop-music and choruses of “Irrashaimase!” (“Welcome to the store,”) thrown from every direction. They wander over tile floors underneath thick clouds of tacky red, yellow and blue signs advertising eternal sales on things no one will be able to use.

After seeing this, I ascended to the second floor, and the third, and the fourth and on up to the seventh, only to find the same, wretched state with one minor difference, this was where they sold electric shavers and batteries, this is where they sell televisions, this is where they sell cell phones. Perhaps this is the most depressing part of hell, it is not imaginatively constructed like in Dante, with a variety of themes in each new realm, but, rather, it is all the same drab and lifeless abode in which the phrase “shop ‘til you drop” sounds like salvation, for at least in dropping off, one can get out.

This was a difficult few hours for me, but I was able to maintain some level of exterior calm amidst the inner turmoil. This was a clear indicator that there is still much work to be done there, however.

a pillar of peace in an ocean of madness

After this, Daniel, Daniel, and I decided to go back home, even though it was maybe only three. We were tired and hungry and wanted to get out. So we went back to Hirakata and ate some okonomiyaki and then returned to campus. One Daniel (the one not in any of the pictures in my posts thus far) went off to study while the other Daniel came back to the Seminar House with me to hang out and eat candy. We sat and talked through dusk. While one would think that spending an afternoon cooped up in the dorm while Japan is just beyond the gates (well, it’s actually in the room to, albeit hidden under all the English spoken), this was quite nice. Daniel is becoming quite a good friend. It was 9:30 or so when we were hungry again and ready to get food. Generally speaking, it’s been my experience that Japan closes down fairly early in the night. But perhaps it’s just because it is such a quiet place. Walk through a neighborhood at any hour of the day and aside from a crow hollering (did I mention that their crows speak a different language?) or a cat meowing (cats, on the other hand, still speak cat), there is nary a sound to be heard.

We knew there was an izakaya (the Japanese version of a tavern) nearby, so we decided we’d go there and get some food. Of course, izakayas are meant for drinking and snacking more than eating a full meal. But we got some food (I got some kind of vegetable pizza, which was nice because that’s a rarity in this country), and left and headed back. Even though the day seemed a bust, it ended on a good note.

I have become convinced that if I want to do sightseeing, I am best off doing so on my own. I tend to travel from place to place faster than most and move slower once there. This unusual rhythm tends to not work in group settings (that and groups take a while to make decisions and get moving).

So on Sunday I woke up early (7:45am!) to go to Kyoto and see some temples. I made a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich and put it in my pack and was on the train by 8:45. I bought a bus pass that would allow me to move about freely (usually they are 220 yen/ride, which can add up, the bus pass is 500 yen). Of course, I had to wrestle with a vending machine to get it. But I prevailed.

I started at Myoshin-ji, which is a large, active temple complex (housing some 24 subtemples) in the Rinzai lineage of Zen Buddhism. Walking along the main path through the complex, I heard some chanting from a nearby temple and stepped through the threshold and listened for a few moments.

I walked further and came across a temple, Taizo-in, that is famous for its gardens and sumi-e painting of a man catching a catfish. I paid the admission fee and walked in. Again I heard a bell sounding and people chanting. I lingered near the sound of chanting and admired the catfish painting for a few minutes before heading down to the gardens.

At the entrance to the garden are two rock gardens. These were quite nice. After a few minutes of enjoying them, I heard a small bell ringing in the bushes. I turned to look in that direction and saw a white cat with a pink collar jumping out from the bushes. I watched it as it looked at the rock garden on the left, and then on the right. It looked like it wanted to jump in the rock garden, and, after clawing at the rope nearby, it hopped on it, walked around, and dig around. For those unfamiliar with the rock garden, they are usually very pristine, very well-kept arrangements in which the gravel is raked in a particular way and all leaves and other objects are removed or deliberately placed. The little trickster cat came by just to make sure no one was getting too attached to it.

The garden itself was beautiful and quiet. There was a couple there trying to take a picture with a timer, but they were unable to make the run quick enough so I pulled out a little Japanese (shashin o torimashoo ka?) and took their picture. They were nice enough to return the favor.

I then went to another temple in the complex, this one famous for its painted walls and doors.

two of many, many beautiful paintings. i have not included my favorite, because it could not be photographed. i have some video that may make it's way online someday (like all my video)

After that I hopped a bus for Nanneji, another large complex. I arrived at the very large gate and noticed something that I've noticed at other places.

Good and evil have no self nature;
Holy and unholy are empty names;
In front of the door is the land of stillness and quiet;
Spring comes, grass grows by itself.
Master Seung Sahn

Do you see in the picture those two guards at either side of the gate? They are very frightening, no? (kowai desu ne!). Well I've read about this in a book and it's like the only symbolic understanding I have of the statues and architecture here (I'm in desperate need of a book), so I will pass on what I've learned to you, since such frightful characters may seem confusing, especially if found at the entrance of a Buddhist temple, which is generally thought to be peaceful and calm. The one of the left has his mouth closed, while the one on the right has his open. This represents the opposites -- closed/open; life/death; sacred/profane; good/evil. They are frightening figures because at the threshold to enlightenment is fear. These are the demons that keep us from walking in the center. Fear of death, fear of pain, fear of living an uncomfortable life, fear of being alone. Thus, when walking through the gates, one stands at the center of the opposites, touching both and knowing them to not be but two sides of the same coin (a la the yin-yang). And, in walking through, one sees the fearful apparitions as they really are. These monsters are just wood, just statues; these fears are just illusions.

After wandering a bit, I continued down the road to Ryoan-ji, which is famous for its rock garden (of which you've undoubtedly seen pictures, but I'll post one anyway). A picture is nothing, this is a garden that needs to be experienced. I was overwhelmed by it. I am unable to say anything more about it.

After spending a good while at Ryoan-ji, I continued down the road to Kinkakuji or the Gold Temple, which, unlike Ginkakuji (the silver temple) is appropriately named.

And then, exhausted, I returned home.

My experience in Japan thus far has been great. It is a bit strange to walk around at first. Despite the refined aesthetic sensibilities of the Japanese art forms (from gardens to paintings to architecture), the cities are quite dreary and modern and lifeless feeling... full of concrete and shopping malls and fast food restaurants. I think American cities (Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, New York -- Manhattan at least), each have different personalities but ultimately are well planned and good looking. A trip to downtown Kyoto, however, will reveal a city that is not nearly as beautiful as American cities. But, in spite of this, there always seems to be some magic lurking around the corner. And that is how Japan is seducing me.

Classes began last week and are all looking good. My Sumi-e course is going to be a challenge (as I have no painting experience with such things, brushes and paint and the like; I've got more than a few gold stars from fingerpainting though), but I think it will be rewarding. My Japanese classes seem like they'll be great. My spoken Japanese professor is energetic and and the class looks like it'll be challenging, but not unbearably so.

My reading and writing class in Japanese is also fun. I'm finding it to be almost like a philosophy course. It's because kanji are full of depth of meaning. For example, today we learned the kanji for weather (天気 -- pronounced tenki). This may seem rather benign at first, until we recognize that the first character (天:ten) means "heaven" and the second character (気:ki) means "spirit" (in the sense of the general mood or feeling of something). So weather is the spirit or feeling of heaven. I think this is quite lovely. We also learned the kanji for げんき (元気 -- genki, meaning healthy or energetic -- essentially in good spirits), which again features 気（き) but this time with the kanji for "origin" (元:gen). Thus, the word genki means something like original spirit. Our original spirit is healthy, energetic and good.

With this and hearing Japanese all the time, I am finding myself more and more drawn to language (both Japanese and in general). Communication is such a wonderful thing, and I always hate it when I am unable to do so. My inability mixed with my desire in the cauldron of possibility will hopefully yield a nice potion of understanding (are you enjoying this, Brady? :wink:)

Until next time, さようなら (sayoonara)。

Our trek to Kyoto

2007-01-28T20:22:00.000+09:00

Well, Friday I went to Kyoto, and, for that matter, Saturday as well. On Friday almost all the new international students went to Kyoto as part of a tour set up by the university… that is, depending on how broadly you define the word “tour.” We were split up into groups (my group consisted Daniel, Tommy, and Niklas from Sweden Arum from South Korea, and Kara from Minnesota) and assigned a guide (a Kansai Gaidai student). Our guide, however, did not seem to have much idea where to go and wasn’t terribly familiar with the workings of the Kyoto rail system, so we ended up getting lost a couple of times. We were fortunate to run into another international student who knew a little bit more about the area and that helped.

Eventually, we made it to Fushiminari Shrine, which is famous for its thousands of tori, which are those iconic red gates you might see in a picture of Japan in a tourbook or some such thing. The tori are all placed together along the paths that wind up the mountain through a forest, creating a kind of tunnel.

From left to right: Our guide, Arum, Evan, Kara, Daniel, Niklas, Tommy. Everyone's camera was used to take a similar picture, so I was getting bored with the same ol' facial expression. This was an unfortunate variation ;-)

Entering the shrine, we came upon a washing station. In Shinto (which, if I recall correctly, means something like “way of the gods”), purification is very important so at the entrance to most or all shrines is a basin with water and ladels. Before entering, it is customary to wash ones hands and mouth with the water. So we all stopped at the basin to do some purification before climbing the mountain (but, as fate would have it, the climb would turn out to be quite purifying…)

Note: This is not the washing basin at Fushiminari, but a washing basin I saw at another shrine near Ginkakuji

Also near the entrance was a place where persons could get their fortunes on a slip of paper. Some of the others did this, but, since it was in Japanese, we were mostly out of luck in understanding them. I believe the idea is that if one receives a negative fortune, one ties it to a nearby tree or post, thus parting with that unfortunate future.

Fushiminari is a shrine to the fox god, and so on either side of one of the first tori were two fox statues. I am not sure if they were guarding the way or what their function was. I actually would love to get a book (or maybe I’ll just talk to a professor at Kansai Gaidai) about the iconography of Shinto shrines and Buddhist Temples in Japan.

We passed through and began the climb up. The sun was setting and so we tried not to tarry too long taking tons of pictures, but, of course, we did. One of the interesting things about each of the tori is that they are all owned by some one or some family and have to be replaced every 30 years I believe (because the wood rots due to the humidity). I have no idea how expensive this must be, but I think it’s safe to assume that it is something only the very wealthy can do.

Along the path there are various shrines (and the ubiquitous vending machines – I suppose some, including some Japanese vending companies, would say that Coca-Cola is the nectar of the gods), to which persons make trips to make offerings and prayers for good fortune or cures to ailments.

Towards the top of the climb, there is an overlook from which all of Kyoto can be seen. It was dusk when we reached this point and the city was beginning to light up.

At this point a Japanese woman stopped and directed us (as the path forked into three directions) to what she said was the top. So we made our way in that direction up a very difficult climb and finally reached the peak. We were hoping to be able to get a better view of the city from this point, but trees and a building blocked any view may have had. Legs were aching, and many were complaining. We had all bundled up for the trip, but none were without sweat by the top. Some commented that it was getting warmer, but the sun had set. It was not an external change, but an internal one. Who sees this?

It began to rain lightly for our descent, and one girl had a wool coat, which apparently does not mix with rain and so we, with gravity as both an aid and a danger on the slippery steps, made our way down quickly.

I was hoping we might stop somewhere in Kyoto to eat as there was no shortage of places, but the others elected to return back Hirakata and go to the conveyer belt sushi place again (it’s fairly inexpensive and good, so why not).

From Left to Right: Tommy (Sweden), Kara (Minnesota), Daniel (Sweden), Me, Arum (Korea), Niklas (Sweden)

The next day, I woke up with my legs aching from all the walking the day previous. But, I really wanted to go back to Kyoto to see some temples and begin to get oriented in the city (as we only saw a very very very small part). So I toughed it out and went back.

I was hoping to start my trek at Kyoto station. After some confusion about doubling back on the rail system (as there express and local trains, sometimes it would seem advantageous to take an express past one’s destination and then go back a couple of stops, but occasionally one has to pay for a transfer, and I’m frugal so I opted to walk instead), I arrived at Kyoto station, which, as I had heard, was gigantic. Within this train station, there is a movie theater, a department store (like a 6 story department store, not like a JC Penney in a local mall back home), and all sorts of other things. I was mostly interested in stopping at the Tourist Information place and picking up some maps and information about bus schedules. So, after getting some info and a donut from Mister Donut, I found a bus and headed off to Ginkakuji.

Ginkakuji is known as the “silver pavilion temple,” but this is a misnomer. There is nothing, nor was there ever, anything silver about it. It was simply named that to differentiate it from Kinkakuji (The Gold Pavilion Temple). I got there sometime around 1:00 and paid the admission fee (500 yen) and made my way in. Ginkakuji has beautifully kept gardens, mixing architecture, rock elements, plants and ponds into a beautiful arrangement. I made my way through slowly, trying to be mindful of all I was experiencing.

The temple was a temple in the Rinzai lineage of Zen Buddhism. I am not sure if it is still an active temple, though. I did not see any monks, but it is possible they were hiding away in the part of the temple off limits to tourists. And of course, what attraction is complete without a gift shop… apparently not even a temple.

I had hoped to visit another temple as well, but it was nearing three and I was hoping to take care of one more thing downtown before heading back home to go out with some friends for dinner. So I began back towards a bus stop. Before doing so, though, I picked up a free sample of something from some sweet shop. It was a sweet, cinnamon jelly (from talking with others, I would guess it’s made of red beans or something) wrapped in a soft something. Whatever it was, it was absolutely delicious, and I would like to find more of it.

Back towards downtown, I was looking for a record shop to buy some concert tickets to a show coming up in Kyoto. It was in some shopping district that has kilometers of covered roads (well, I guess it’s not too dissimilar to an indoor mall), and though I had a hand-drawn map (read: bad idea), I had no idea where to go. Fortunately, I was able to ask some people for directions to landmarks near the shop and was able to locate it. For the most part, I have yet to really feel lost thus far in Japan. By lost I mean the feeling of not only being in the “wrong place,” but also feeling unable to find one’s destination.

I bought the tickets (Joanna Newsom on Feb. 19 in Kyoto – I’m stoked!) and headed back home. Not having a cell phone, it is always an uncertainty as to whether I’ll be able to meet up with the people I want to or not. Fortunately, I ran into my friend Daniel in the dorm and we headed to meet a group for dinner.

The restaurant we went to was near the Seminar Houses and served Okonomiyaki, which is a mixture of lettuce, egg and some other things (this is actually only a guess, I’m not exactly sure what goes into it) and your choice of something (like shrimp or vegetables or meat of some kind) and then covered in some sauce and cooked (like a pancake). I had one with Shrimp (Ebi). This was actually pretty good, except there were occasionally bites of something that didn’t quite suit me. It’s a taste I encountered the other night when I unwittingly ate octopus. Oh, I didn’t tell you this story did I.

I was out and about in Makino (an area right by the Seminar Houses), hungry and looking for something to eat (tonight is the first night we are allowed to cook in the kitchen). I saw this one guy in a stall wide enough only for him frying up some balls of something. I was hungry, and they didn’t look too bad and so I got some and took them back home. I bit into it and it was chewy and then there were tough bits to it. It didn’t taste too pleasant, and the texture was a mix of too chewy and too tough. I ate four and then decided I had no desire to finish the rest. After digging around on the internet, I have since determined that I was eating octopus (a food called takoyaki). So I can now tell you quite objectively that I do not like octopus.

Today was the day that the homestay kids moved off to live with their host families. My best friend here, Daniel, left, but we have a class together so I’ll still be certain to see him regularly.

Speaking of classes, I registered on Thursday and, after being fortunate in drawing lots (#97 out of over 400), I got all the classes I wanted – Death in East Asian Thought and Sumi-e (brush painting). I also found out yesterday that I made it into level 2 of Japanese! I’m really glad about this. One semester of Japanese at Elon covers half of what level one does here (Lessons 1-4 in Genki vs. Lessons 1-9 – of course they meet every day of the week), and so I was worried that I would be in level one and spend half the class repeating what I already know. So over January I started studying and got through lesson 8 in Genki, albeit not absorbing as well as I had lessons 1-4 in class. So Level 2 should be a little difficult, but I’m glad I’ll be challenged and hopefully make some big improvements in Japanese.

That’s about all for now; I hope I’ll be able to take some film this week of my journey to or from school and of the Seminar House and maybe I’ll have a video tour of the immediate area in the next couple of weeks for you all, but that’s all time-dependent.

Culture Shock like Lightning Bolts!

2007-01-24T20:34:00.000+09:00

こんにちは！ (Good Afternoon!)

First, a little verse…

Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?
Who finds us here circling, bewildered, like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty
And sees the moon reflected in it?
Who, like Jacob blind with grief and age,
Smells the shirt of his lost son
And can see again?
Who lets a bucket down and brings up
A flowing prophet? Or like Moses goes for fire
And finds what burns inside the sunrise?

Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,
And opens a door to the other world.
Solomon cuts open a fish, and there’s a gold ring.
Omar storms in to kill the prophet
And leaves with blessings.
Chase a deer and end up everywhere!
An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop
Now there’s a pearl.

A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he’s wealthy.

Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things
Have gone with others. Unfold
Your own myth, without complicated explanation
So everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you.

Start walking toward Shams. Your legs will get heavy
And tired. Then comes a moment
Of feeling the wings you’ve grown,
Lifting.
(Rumi)

I begin with this poem, entitled “Unfold your own myth” by Jalaladin Rumi, because it is with this spirit that I am trying to approach my study in Japan. I come here with, I think, few expectations, but with what expectations I do have, I am making myself open to finding the unexpected. That is to say that even though the journey may take me in to the realm of the unknown, the frightening, and sometimes delightfully surprising, ultimately I think my time here will bear good fruit, even if it is an apple where I thought there would be a pear.

Thus far, I have experienced a great deal of fear and excitement. After the fourteen hour plane ride from Detroit, through which the sat fixed above the horizon, never giving in to night, we finally arrived in Kansai International Airport in Osaka. Here the sun gave in to darkness. Riding on the bus (which took 90 minutes – Kansai Int’l Airport is actually some 36km from Osaka, and it’s even further to Hirakata-shi), I tried to stay awake. We passed billboard after billboard, all filled with kanji (Chinese characters) I could not understand. At this point, I began to realize that I am not in Kansas anymore. Stripped of the security of friends and family and a language I am comfortable with, my mind began racing. Uncertainties and doubts began to fill me.

We arrived at Seminar House 4, my home in Japan, at around 8pm (Osaka time). Having not but closed my eyes for perhaps 30-40 minutes on the plane, I was quite dazed and confused. For some strange reason, the people who had been there for the Fall semester announced to us that they would be giving us, exhausted though we were, a tour of the area in 15 minutes. Stranger still, I decided to go. So we walked around and I saw some places but I didn’t remember any of it.

I did not have much difficulty sleeping (on my futon pictured below), even though I was beginning to feel completely out of place. I woke up at about 6 in the morning and, despite still being tired, could not get back to sleep. I could only think of all that I needed to do this week, and all the worries and great doubts I was beginning to have.

But my fears have begun to come to rest. The first day (Sunday), we had no obligations and I met a few people down in the dining room who were going to go out exploring. I decided I’d go along and we walked to Makino Station (the closest rail station). I began to notice how many people ride bikes here. Everyone does. There are many scooters too. That’s not to say that people don’t drive, because there’s a fair share of that too, but bicycles seem to be the common mode of transportation (especially for students). While near Makino station, a number of children rode by us (5 tall, white guys) and waved and said “Hey” and “How are you?” They were very enthusiastic and seemed happy when we waved back at them. There was a Mister Donut across the street, so the guys went in there and got donuts. We also stopped at various vending machines to take pictures of all the crazy things you can get in vending machines here. Cold sodas, hot coffee… not too unusual, right? Well then there’s also cigarettes, hot noodles, and crazy drinks – a Kit Kat drink?

After Makino Station, we went back down to do some shopping along the main drag nearby (which also goes by campus). We got some groceries and then went down the street to a place beloved by the students here, a ramen place that served large bowls of ramen for 180 yen ($1.49). It had a Waffle House vibe to it.

Later in the day we took a bus to the main part of Hirakata-shi, which is where there is a bunch of shopping. Imagine an American shopping center, like with hundreds of stores, packed into a space an 1/6 the size. Aside from the language difference, walking around the stores didn’t feel any different from shopping in America. Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC? Yeah, all here. Not exactly my place, but the other guys needed some items.

We walked back, through a labyrinth of houses. Fortunately, one of my companions had a GPS and successfully led us through, albeit with many moments of doubt, to our dorm.

The next day I wandered about the area and through campus. The campus here is really pretty. Here are some pictures.

Like Elon, they have a fountain. Unlike Elon, their fountain doesn't shoot 70 feet in the air. They also let their grass brown in the winter. It's actually quite pretty with the brownish-red bushes.

Now get ready for some cool stuff...

So, that's cool-looking, but look at those dots on the glass at the top.

That's right: they're photovoltaic cells... solar cells! Pretty nifty. And there's a display nearby that indicates something about them (how much power they're generating or something, I can't yet decipher what's going on with it. I can tell you that it's showing that no power was being generated because it was a cloudy day).

After all this walking (a good few miles) I decided that I needed a bike. Another girl was looking for one too, so we set off to find one. I thought I knew where a bike shop was, but we couldn’t seem to find it. Up until that point, the only Japanese I had used was the very basic, “Sumimasen,” “Ohayoo Gozaimasu,” “Arigatoo Gozaimasu,” as I had been pretty nervous about trying anything else. But we needed bikes so I asked one woman if she knew where we could buy used bikes (Doko de chuuko no jitensha o kaimasu ka? – I’m not sure if this is 100% accurate or sounds right, but the message got through). She had no idea, so we asked another woman and she pointed us to a bike shop, but she wasn’t sure if they had used bikes. We had passed by a shop that sold motorcycles earlier, but we didn’t think they had bikes. On our second pass, though, we noticed a few bikes and were able to communicate with the woman and buy bikes. I tried to negotiate down the price on my bike, but she would only go so far as to knock off the taxes, which was cool with me. So I now have a sweet yellow bike with a headlight, a basket, and a bell (for 6500 yen, ~$53). It fits me quite well (which is surprising given my height) and rides really smoothly. I'll post a picture some other time.

On Tuesday, I ventured out early to the university and registered my bike and stopped in at the Seattle’s Best Coffee on campus (weird, right?). I noticed they had muffins, and being the muffin-lover that I am, took a look at their offerings. They had a green tea chocolate muffin. Now, green tea and chocolate has been known to be a great flavor combination since a wily alchemist in the late Qin Dynasty in China stumbled upon it. But this muffin tasted funny. I don’t think there was enough chocolate (not like those Cappucino Chocolate muffins back at Acorn). I think my tongue just needs to do a gestalt shift to get used to the tastes here.

After my foray into the world of uniquely Japanese breakfast foods (yeah, I know a muffin isn’t really Japanese), I took the language placement exam. This will decide what level of Japanese I'll be taking. The listening comprehension was ridiculously difficult. I wasn’t the only one who thought so either. But the rest of the exam wasn’t bad. I feel pretty good with how I did, I just hope I did well enough to squeeze into level 2 (so I’m not stuck repeating things I already know, and so I can get much further ahead in my Japanese). But I'm sure it'll be fine either way.

Today was the day we drew lots for registration (which is tomorrow). For this we eached reached our hand into a box of papers and picked out a number. This paper determines at what point in the queue we're registered. I picked #97 out of 408 I think, so I should be able to get all the classes I want.

Aside from that, I met my speaking partner today. Her name is Yukie. She was pretty nervous about meeting me, so she brought over a number of her friends, who all commented on how blue my eyes are. They were all very nice and it was fun to try to hurdle over the obstacles to communication. I was really nervous, so I didn't really use my Japanese a lot. I should have, but now that I think the ice has been broken it should be easier next time.

(Me and Yukie)

Tonight my friend from Sweden, Daniel, invited me to dinner with him and three other guys from Sweden. We went to a conveyer belt restaurant. Here, food comes by each table on a conveyer belt and you pick what you want off it. You then pay about 105 yen ($0.85-0.90) for each plate you get. The portions on each are small, but I had my fill after three (granted others got 9 or so).

That's one of the things about being here at Kansai Gaidai that I've really enjoyed. I feel very blessed for it actually. I have had the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. Today I met two girls from South Korea who live in Sem. 4 with me. There's also a girl from South Africa, there's a few from Germany, there's a few from Sweden, some from the UK, a guy down the hall from Lithuania. It's really exciting.

Well, I think that's all for now. Friday I go to Kyoto, so I'll have a post about that forthcoming. I might also compile a post of all the interesting vending machines I'm seeing, and another with a tour of Seminar House 4 (maybe a video version?).

Also, I know this post was incredibly long. Thank you for reading it. I know there were probably many dry, boring details I included that I didn't need to. I'm new to this whole blog thing, so I'm not sure what to include or what not to, so if you have any thoughts or think I should focus on particular things, let me know.

an introduction

2006-12-19T08:18:00.000+09:00

Hello and welcome, my name is Evan Webb and this is my blog (as the hipsters call them). This will serve as my primary mode of communication with y'all – friends, family, and strangers – while I study in Japan at Kansai Gaidai University in the Spring of 2007. I welcome your comments and questions as this journey begins and goes on.

For strangers who have happened upon this site perhaps by some clever search, welcome. You can get a vague silhouette of who I might be (or who you imagine me to be) by the information in my profile (the link is on the right). A shadow moving through these words will be your narrator and guide, and hopefully we'll have some fun and insight, eh?