Day 28 - Wednesday 28
Not that I have been super diligent about updating my blog, but now I'll have a legit excuse to not post: golden week. Yeah!
I kicked off today with a midterm for Japanese. Fun. Fun times. It wasn't too bad and I pretty much had the rest of the day to myself. I chilled at the center for a bit before heading off to the riverside to lay in the grass and appreciate the beautiful weather. It was like the sun was smiling down upon the start of my golden week adventures.
Then, a group of students headed off to tabehodai and nomihodai at Shakey's, so I tagged along. Shakey's is this pizza restaurant that serves unlimited drinks for an hour and unlimited food until, well, until you're done. All for the bargain price of 1400 yen. Don't worry. We drank responsibly. Although I don't know if I can say the same for our food consumption. We ate a lot. And I'm still full several hours later.
I'm spending the night at Rachel's tonight and her home stay is pretty awesome. Her Obasan is so cute. And I have a tatami room all to myself and stolen internet from some manga cafe down the street. Can't complain. But I do have to get up for Tokyo at 6 tomorrow. So off to bed for me. Three night and four days in Tokyo. Should be fun!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
So I lied
Actually I did do something pretty great yesterday. I had an awesome ice cream bar. Imagine a Crunch bar wrapped around strawberry ice cream goodness. Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm. I remembered because today I had another awesome ice cream confection. One layer of vanilla ice cream over azuki bean ice cream. Yum.
Even less...Day 27
Day 27 - Tuesday, April 27
The weather was terrible. Rain and the wind, oh the wind. Almost broke my umbrella. Not happy times. The weather was so bad I was drained of all will to be spontaneous and completely dissuaded from finding something fun to do, so after school I went home and took a nap.
Oh, and packed for Golden Week. Yeeeeah.
The weather was terrible. Rain and the wind, oh the wind. Almost broke my umbrella. Not happy times. The weather was so bad I was drained of all will to be spontaneous and completely dissuaded from finding something fun to do, so after school I went home and took a nap.
Oh, and packed for Golden Week. Yeeeeah.
Not much...Day 26
Day 26 - Monday, April 26
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Mondays. Why are Mondays so Monday-like? I didn't have E40 and used that extra morning time to skype with my parents. Hooray! But when I got to school my brain was not functioning and Japanese class was kind of painful. It was like it was in another language or something. Crazy, I know. And this week we have our Japanese midterm. Oh noes! I'll actually have to study. Why can't it all be fun and games?
After class (thankfully I only have one on Mondays) I had a nice long lunch with Rachel, Bridget, and David. We sat and talked story in the cafeteria for a few hours and then I went to mail off my postcards! Hooray for international mail. Yeah, that was my day. Short. Not much going on. I mean, I didn't even eat any ice cream today. I'm totally slipping.
As for the rematch, I was victorious!
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Mondays. Why are Mondays so Monday-like? I didn't have E40 and used that extra morning time to skype with my parents. Hooray! But when I got to school my brain was not functioning and Japanese class was kind of painful. It was like it was in another language or something. Crazy, I know. And this week we have our Japanese midterm. Oh noes! I'll actually have to study. Why can't it all be fun and games?
After class (thankfully I only have one on Mondays) I had a nice long lunch with Rachel, Bridget, and David. We sat and talked story in the cafeteria for a few hours and then I went to mail off my postcards! Hooray for international mail. Yeah, that was my day. Short. Not much going on. I mean, I didn't even eat any ice cream today. I'm totally slipping.
As for the rematch, I was victorious!
Flea Market! ...Day 25
Day 25 - Sunday, April 25
Every 25th of the month Kitano Tenmangu Shrine holds a flea market. I love flea markets and I managed to reign Prae into going with me. We arranged to meet at noon, but for some reason I woke up early and decided to just head over early. I caught the train and subway to campus and planned to walk to the temple from there, but me being directionally handicapped walked in the wrong direction. I realized this when I reached the river that I was supposed to be walking away from.
I ended up taking a bus because the shrine was too far from the river to for me to make it in time. And can I just say that was the most crowded bus I have ever been on. It was insane one arm was in the air an elbow was in someone's rib cage. Crazy world, my friends, crazy world. And the little hunched over old people are even crazier. They push and shove, and are positively frightening. But I made it to the temple in one piece despite the geriatric demons and walked past bustling crowds to get to the temple.
Prae arrived on the bus after and we wandered around the booths. There were food booths (yes, free samples), game booths (they have these silly paper hoop things to scoop fish and balls before the paper breaks), booths with plants, booths with silly souveniers, booths with old stuff, booths with creepy old dolls, and lots and lots of booths selling old kimonos. Prae and I didn't actually end up buying anything aside from food. We settled on Hiroshima style okonomiyaki and those little fish things with the red bean paste inside. Yum. Good times.
Mosquito punks. These always reminds me of Aunty Maybelle for some reason.
Prae and I decided to walk back to the Imadegawa Station near school and along the way stumbled upon an archaeology museum. Free Admission!! Yeah we went in and got awesome stamps. The museum was pretty cool, but let me just say there was a reason it was free. It looked like they had found these artifacts at building sites and decided to stash them in this museum. Then we wandered some more. Saw a temple and happened upon a really pretty little stream. We walked along the stream for a bit and sat and talked story before going our separate ways home.
After dinner my host father and I played Go. 'Go' means five in Japanese, it's kind of like connect four, but played on a board. The object of the game is to get five in a row, which can be surprisingly difficult given that I was playing with a seasoned veteran. But I had beginners luck on my side. I won the first game, lost two, and came back strong for the win in the last round. My host father said we'll have to play again sometime so he can exact his revenge on me. Insert evil laughter.
Every 25th of the month Kitano Tenmangu Shrine holds a flea market. I love flea markets and I managed to reign Prae into going with me. We arranged to meet at noon, but for some reason I woke up early and decided to just head over early. I caught the train and subway to campus and planned to walk to the temple from there, but me being directionally handicapped walked in the wrong direction. I realized this when I reached the river that I was supposed to be walking away from.
I ended up taking a bus because the shrine was too far from the river to for me to make it in time. And can I just say that was the most crowded bus I have ever been on. It was insane one arm was in the air an elbow was in someone's rib cage. Crazy world, my friends, crazy world. And the little hunched over old people are even crazier. They push and shove, and are positively frightening. But I made it to the temple in one piece despite the geriatric demons and walked past bustling crowds to get to the temple.
Prae arrived on the bus after and we wandered around the booths. There were food booths (yes, free samples), game booths (they have these silly paper hoop things to scoop fish and balls before the paper breaks), booths with plants, booths with silly souveniers, booths with old stuff, booths with creepy old dolls, and lots and lots of booths selling old kimonos. Prae and I didn't actually end up buying anything aside from food. We settled on Hiroshima style okonomiyaki and those little fish things with the red bean paste inside. Yum. Good times.
Mosquito punks. These always reminds me of Aunty Maybelle for some reason.
Prae and I decided to walk back to the Imadegawa Station near school and along the way stumbled upon an archaeology museum. Free Admission!! Yeah we went in and got awesome stamps. The museum was pretty cool, but let me just say there was a reason it was free. It looked like they had found these artifacts at building sites and decided to stash them in this museum. Then we wandered some more. Saw a temple and happened upon a really pretty little stream. We walked along the stream for a bit and sat and talked story before going our separate ways home.
After dinner my host father and I played Go. 'Go' means five in Japanese, it's kind of like connect four, but played on a board. The object of the game is to get five in a row, which can be surprisingly difficult given that I was playing with a seasoned veteran. But I had beginners luck on my side. I won the first game, lost two, and came back strong for the win in the last round. My host father said we'll have to play again sometime so he can exact his revenge on me. Insert evil laughter.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Free food for my tummy...Day 24
Day 24 - Saturday, April 24
The Kansai Stanford Alumni group sponsored a lunch event and invited all of the SCTI-ers to attend. There was free food, so of course pretty much all of us showed up. Lunch was at noon, but before the eating festivities we had the option of visiting a kimono making factory/shop, Nishijin. There, we watched a mini kimono fashion show and got to go upstairs and see some very old kimono pieces and cloth patterns. We even got to watch an old lady work a Jacquard loom and another woman pulling silk from the cocoon of the silk worms. Poor silkworms, they get boiled so the silk can be drawn into thread. I guess that means vegans can't wear silk.
This lady was all over that loom.
By the time we got to the guest house on campus, where lunch was held, I and pretty much everyone else was famished. But there were formalities and speeches that postponed the meal. I ate like a pig. There was a man sitting across from me who had a slightly surprised and slightly amused (at least I'm telling myself it was amusement and not disgust) face when I returned several times to my seat with large quantities of food covering my plate. The food was so good and there was so much of it, I just couldn't help myself. I am a growing girl and I eat what I like. Let's see, there were pizzas, sushi, okonomiyaki, salad, sandwiches, yakitori, yakiniku, and cake, oh, and fruit. I love the fruit here. I'm salivating just thinking of that spread.
Yum. Silk worms.
After lunch there were self introductions. The SCTI students introduced ourselves in Japanese, while the Kansai alum introduced themselves in English. All in all that self introduction bit took about three hours. Yes, loooooooooooong.
Afterwards Rachel, Kenny and I finally went to Kyoto Eki and exchanged our passes for tickets. Yes! Success, finally. I was still full when I arrived home. Ah, to be full for more than an hour is a beautiful feeling. Although it didn't feel to beautiful when I had to put down dinner on a full stomach. But no complaints. Food, and especially good food makes Anya a happy girl.
The Kansai Stanford Alumni group sponsored a lunch event and invited all of the SCTI-ers to attend. There was free food, so of course pretty much all of us showed up. Lunch was at noon, but before the eating festivities we had the option of visiting a kimono making factory/shop, Nishijin. There, we watched a mini kimono fashion show and got to go upstairs and see some very old kimono pieces and cloth patterns. We even got to watch an old lady work a Jacquard loom and another woman pulling silk from the cocoon of the silk worms. Poor silkworms, they get boiled so the silk can be drawn into thread. I guess that means vegans can't wear silk.
This lady was all over that loom.
By the time we got to the guest house on campus, where lunch was held, I and pretty much everyone else was famished. But there were formalities and speeches that postponed the meal. I ate like a pig. There was a man sitting across from me who had a slightly surprised and slightly amused (at least I'm telling myself it was amusement and not disgust) face when I returned several times to my seat with large quantities of food covering my plate. The food was so good and there was so much of it, I just couldn't help myself. I am a growing girl and I eat what I like. Let's see, there were pizzas, sushi, okonomiyaki, salad, sandwiches, yakitori, yakiniku, and cake, oh, and fruit. I love the fruit here. I'm salivating just thinking of that spread.
Yum. Silk worms.
After lunch there were self introductions. The SCTI students introduced ourselves in Japanese, while the Kansai alum introduced themselves in English. All in all that self introduction bit took about three hours. Yes, loooooooooooong.
Afterwards Rachel, Kenny and I finally went to Kyoto Eki and exchanged our passes for tickets. Yes! Success, finally. I was still full when I arrived home. Ah, to be full for more than an hour is a beautiful feeling. Although it didn't feel to beautiful when I had to put down dinner on a full stomach. But no complaints. Food, and especially good food makes Anya a happy girl.
JR fail, again...Day 23
Day 23 - Friday, April 23
9:00 lab isn't exactly the best way to start the day. But that's where I was 9:00 am Friday morning. In lab playing with an operational amplifier. Fun times. Luckily, the lab wasn't too long and thanks to Matt, one of my lab partners, we finished in record time and went to grab some lunch before the mad rush on the cafeteria.
Rachel and I have been kind of behind on the whole planning Golden Week thing. We were supposed to go book our shinkansen tickets after I got out of lab. I had been mailing Rachel like crazy after lab, but she is apparently a heavy sleeper. During lunch she finally received my texts and we arranged to meet in an hour at Kyoto Station. I go to Kyoto station at our arranged time, but Rachel was a bit late, I text her and she says shes eating lunch and she should be by in 20. Long story short, she was a bit over an hour late. Ususally I'd be a bit irritated (no one makes Anya wait), but luckily there are so many neat stores and crazy things to see around the station that I didn't really mind. But the thing is, because she was so late, I decided to go to the Bing (the crazy rich family that sponsors all of the abroad programs at Stanford) arranged a cultural activity for our group.
Then have the strangest things here.
Rule of thumb: if an event is Bing sponsored go. I was a bit late, but thanks to the office ladies and some maps I was able to get to the location right in time for it to begin. We watched rakugo, a sort of one-man Japanese comedy act (which was thankfully in English) and a man spinning tops, which sounds kind of weird, but trust me, was pretty cool.
After all that business I went back to the program center to meet Rachel and we headed off to Kyoto Station. We wandered around a bit and settled down in a cafe to finalize our travel plans. About the time when we were good and ready to go to the ticket window, I pull out my JR pass and notice that I have Kenny's. Kenny, who was in Okinawa for the day. Boo. Multiple fails on both mine and Rachels part. So we did what girls do, that is wander around and shop. I finally found leggings that fit (I am a mutant by their clothing standards) and even a pair of boots so I don't feel like a hobo in my running shoes.
For dinner Rachel and I settled on an Italian pasta restaurant. I am used to eating at gluttous American restaurants where the serving sizes are so immense that leaving with takeout box is a must. Here in Japan, there are no takeout boxes and this restaurants pricing systems prove it. Basically, you could order any sized dish of pasta (ranging from M to LL) for the same price. Crazy I know. If it was America, everyone would order the LL and take home some leftovers. But here in the Land of the Rising Son, people order what they can eat. Rachel and I both settled for L size and some breadsticks.
Engrish prease.
Then off to home and sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
9:00 lab isn't exactly the best way to start the day. But that's where I was 9:00 am Friday morning. In lab playing with an operational amplifier. Fun times. Luckily, the lab wasn't too long and thanks to Matt, one of my lab partners, we finished in record time and went to grab some lunch before the mad rush on the cafeteria.
Rachel and I have been kind of behind on the whole planning Golden Week thing. We were supposed to go book our shinkansen tickets after I got out of lab. I had been mailing Rachel like crazy after lab, but she is apparently a heavy sleeper. During lunch she finally received my texts and we arranged to meet in an hour at Kyoto Station. I go to Kyoto station at our arranged time, but Rachel was a bit late, I text her and she says shes eating lunch and she should be by in 20. Long story short, she was a bit over an hour late. Ususally I'd be a bit irritated (no one makes Anya wait), but luckily there are so many neat stores and crazy things to see around the station that I didn't really mind. But the thing is, because she was so late, I decided to go to the Bing (the crazy rich family that sponsors all of the abroad programs at Stanford) arranged a cultural activity for our group.
Then have the strangest things here.
Rule of thumb: if an event is Bing sponsored go. I was a bit late, but thanks to the office ladies and some maps I was able to get to the location right in time for it to begin. We watched rakugo, a sort of one-man Japanese comedy act (which was thankfully in English) and a man spinning tops, which sounds kind of weird, but trust me, was pretty cool.
After all that business I went back to the program center to meet Rachel and we headed off to Kyoto Station. We wandered around a bit and settled down in a cafe to finalize our travel plans. About the time when we were good and ready to go to the ticket window, I pull out my JR pass and notice that I have Kenny's. Kenny, who was in Okinawa for the day. Boo. Multiple fails on both mine and Rachels part. So we did what girls do, that is wander around and shop. I finally found leggings that fit (I am a mutant by their clothing standards) and even a pair of boots so I don't feel like a hobo in my running shoes.
For dinner Rachel and I settled on an Italian pasta restaurant. I am used to eating at gluttous American restaurants where the serving sizes are so immense that leaving with takeout box is a must. Here in Japan, there are no takeout boxes and this restaurants pricing systems prove it. Basically, you could order any sized dish of pasta (ranging from M to LL) for the same price. Crazy I know. If it was America, everyone would order the LL and take home some leftovers. But here in the Land of the Rising Son, people order what they can eat. Rachel and I both settled for L size and some breadsticks.
Engrish prease.
Then off to home and sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
More rain and not much else...Day 22
Day 22 - Thursday, April 22
I went to school. I had class til 6. It rained.
The weather decided to do a total 180 today. It was raining pretty hard. Not torrential, but a constant heavy fall that made it pretty much miserable to leave the school building.
On another note, everyone's computer seems to be dying. Okay, so two computers have died thus far. Both macs. Screen malfunctions or something. I can't have my computer die. I don't know what I'd do without it. So I got to treat my baby right.
I went to school. I had class til 6. It rained.
The weather decided to do a total 180 today. It was raining pretty hard. Not torrential, but a constant heavy fall that made it pretty much miserable to leave the school building.
On another note, everyone's computer seems to be dying. Okay, so two computers have died thus far. Both macs. Screen malfunctions or something. I can't have my computer die. I don't know what I'd do without it. So I got to treat my baby right.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Fail Blog...Day 21 - Wednesday, April 21
Day 21 - Wednesday, April 21
The weather today was gorgeous. Sunny. Sun. Sun. Sun. Oh how I missed you. And the thing is, Kyoto is still getting over the whole being cold thing so it was sunny and cool. Winning combo, at least for afternoon exploratory purposes.
After lunch there were a group of guys heading to Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion) so off to Kinkaku-ji I went. It was rather stunning in the sun. Glowing in the sun and reflecting off the water. So pretty. We wandered the grounds of the garden a bit and I'm not sure if I discussed this, free samples? There are free samples of mochi everywhere. I love it. Kenny and I had no shame getting free samples, but a few of the other guys with us had some reservations. One even felt so bad that he bought a box. I like to think of those tents as a mini Costco that only serves one kind of sample. Yum mochi.
After Kinkaku-ji we were ready to head back to campus so we hopped on a bus. However, as we were riding, our Japanese sensei got off and informed us that we were going in the wrong direction. FAIL. Rookie mistake. What made it worse is that the bus did not go in a loop. We got off a few steps down and as fate would have it landed in front of, yeah you guessed it, another temple. It was pretty cool. There was this awesome pagoda and some other pretty neat buildings and some of the sakura trees still had flowers on them. This time, when we got back on the bus we made sure we were going in the right direction and barely made it back to school. I say barely, because like the little punks we are we took up the back row of seats on the bus. This was all fine and dandy until the bus started filling up, and when I say 'filling up' I don't mean all the seats were taken. I mean all the seats were taken and all the the people standing are so close to each other that their arms were pinned to their body. But we made it thanks to some (pushy) maneuvering.
When I got back to campus, I had a mission. For Golden Week, Rachel wants to visit the Ghibli museum. Ghibli is the company that produces all of the Miyazaki Hayao films. So I'm guessing it'll be a mueseum dedicated to his work. Apparently the tickets can be purchased from a local convenient store. So my wandering buddy, Kenny, and I set out on a mission to find the nearest Lawsons to buy these tickets and afterwards redeem our weeklong unlimited JR passes. We asked around our fellow SCTI-ers where the nearest Lawsons was and they all replied that there are plenty of Lawsons and that we should have no problem running into one. About an hour later, Kenny and I were still wandering. It was getting late and we still needed to make it to Kyoto train station. RIght when we were about to throw in the towel and find the nearest subway station, we spotted it, a Lawsons.
We entered and I realized I really had no idea how I was supposed to go about purchasing these tickets. So I went up to the cashier and he directed me to this machine that resembled an ATM except it had pictures and was all in Japanese. I asked him if I could buy tickets for Ghibli and he just gave me a blank stare. In his defense he did half heartedly stare the machine down with me but in the end I had to face off with this machine by myself. Needless to say, the machine won. FAIL. Our wandering was in vain, but we did get to explore the city a bit.
The nearest subway station was pretty near and we took the Karasuma line to Kyoto station. Now, to explain the JR rail pass ordeal. Basically, as a tourist initiative, JR allows tourists to purchse rail passes that gives them unlimited access to the shinkansen for a certain period of time. Mine is good for a week. Perfect for golden week. Okay, Mom, you're probably not going to like this too much, but technically, I'm not supposed to use the JR pass. It's really only intended for people with a tourist's visa. I have a cultural activities visa. Meaning, if the JR ticket counter found fault with our visa, the pass could be refused and no redeem action, no unlimited shinkansen tickets. But that was a gamble (that I did not inform you of) I was willing to take.
So Kenny and I get to the station go to the counter we've prepared ourselves mentally to look as touristy and out of place as possible, which isn't difficult for either of us. But we went to the wrong counter. After a lot of wayward wandering we find the right counter where we were refused by the woman at the window. FAIL. At this point, neither Kenny nor I were very happy. Those rail passes are a deal if you can redeem them, but basically a lost money if you can't. Luckily, we had a back up plan. Like idiots, we had gone to the central ticketing station. The legit ticketing station with nice marble floors and counters. So we went back to the original wrong counter and asked where the back ticketing station was. The back station was more our style, kind of sketchy with poor lighting and a ticketing agent that did not even look twice at our visas. She even ignored the stamps and cross outs that the original booth lady had scribbled on our passes. Awesome. All set for golden week. Just need to book the shinkansen. Boom.
The weather today was gorgeous. Sunny. Sun. Sun. Sun. Oh how I missed you. And the thing is, Kyoto is still getting over the whole being cold thing so it was sunny and cool. Winning combo, at least for afternoon exploratory purposes.
After lunch there were a group of guys heading to Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion) so off to Kinkaku-ji I went. It was rather stunning in the sun. Glowing in the sun and reflecting off the water. So pretty. We wandered the grounds of the garden a bit and I'm not sure if I discussed this, free samples? There are free samples of mochi everywhere. I love it. Kenny and I had no shame getting free samples, but a few of the other guys with us had some reservations. One even felt so bad that he bought a box. I like to think of those tents as a mini Costco that only serves one kind of sample. Yum mochi.
After Kinkaku-ji we were ready to head back to campus so we hopped on a bus. However, as we were riding, our Japanese sensei got off and informed us that we were going in the wrong direction. FAIL. Rookie mistake. What made it worse is that the bus did not go in a loop. We got off a few steps down and as fate would have it landed in front of, yeah you guessed it, another temple. It was pretty cool. There was this awesome pagoda and some other pretty neat buildings and some of the sakura trees still had flowers on them. This time, when we got back on the bus we made sure we were going in the right direction and barely made it back to school. I say barely, because like the little punks we are we took up the back row of seats on the bus. This was all fine and dandy until the bus started filling up, and when I say 'filling up' I don't mean all the seats were taken. I mean all the seats were taken and all the the people standing are so close to each other that their arms were pinned to their body. But we made it thanks to some (pushy) maneuvering.
When I got back to campus, I had a mission. For Golden Week, Rachel wants to visit the Ghibli museum. Ghibli is the company that produces all of the Miyazaki Hayao films. So I'm guessing it'll be a mueseum dedicated to his work. Apparently the tickets can be purchased from a local convenient store. So my wandering buddy, Kenny, and I set out on a mission to find the nearest Lawsons to buy these tickets and afterwards redeem our weeklong unlimited JR passes. We asked around our fellow SCTI-ers where the nearest Lawsons was and they all replied that there are plenty of Lawsons and that we should have no problem running into one. About an hour later, Kenny and I were still wandering. It was getting late and we still needed to make it to Kyoto train station. RIght when we were about to throw in the towel and find the nearest subway station, we spotted it, a Lawsons.
We entered and I realized I really had no idea how I was supposed to go about purchasing these tickets. So I went up to the cashier and he directed me to this machine that resembled an ATM except it had pictures and was all in Japanese. I asked him if I could buy tickets for Ghibli and he just gave me a blank stare. In his defense he did half heartedly stare the machine down with me but in the end I had to face off with this machine by myself. Needless to say, the machine won. FAIL. Our wandering was in vain, but we did get to explore the city a bit.
The nearest subway station was pretty near and we took the Karasuma line to Kyoto station. Now, to explain the JR rail pass ordeal. Basically, as a tourist initiative, JR allows tourists to purchse rail passes that gives them unlimited access to the shinkansen for a certain period of time. Mine is good for a week. Perfect for golden week. Okay, Mom, you're probably not going to like this too much, but technically, I'm not supposed to use the JR pass. It's really only intended for people with a tourist's visa. I have a cultural activities visa. Meaning, if the JR ticket counter found fault with our visa, the pass could be refused and no redeem action, no unlimited shinkansen tickets. But that was a gamble (that I did not inform you of) I was willing to take.
So Kenny and I get to the station go to the counter we've prepared ourselves mentally to look as touristy and out of place as possible, which isn't difficult for either of us. But we went to the wrong counter. After a lot of wayward wandering we find the right counter where we were refused by the woman at the window. FAIL. At this point, neither Kenny nor I were very happy. Those rail passes are a deal if you can redeem them, but basically a lost money if you can't. Luckily, we had a back up plan. Like idiots, we had gone to the central ticketing station. The legit ticketing station with nice marble floors and counters. So we went back to the original wrong counter and asked where the back ticketing station was. The back station was more our style, kind of sketchy with poor lighting and a ticketing agent that did not even look twice at our visas. She even ignored the stamps and cross outs that the original booth lady had scribbled on our passes. Awesome. All set for golden week. Just need to book the shinkansen. Boom.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The highlight of my day was toast and my nose...Day 20
Day 20 - Tuesday, April 20
My toast is BIG!
More school. Surprise! It was partially cloudy when I stepped outside this morning, but I had only gone a few steps when I felt a bit of drizzle on my forehead. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I ran back into the house and grabbed an umbrella and walked briskly to the train station. Go me. I'm getting a hang of this umbrella business.
Once I got to school, I kind of just stayed there. The rain and my E40 problem set are to blame.
So I've pretty much had a cold the entire time I've been in Japan so far. At first it was a bit of a cough. The cough went away about a week in and was soon replaced with a runny nose. Thankfully, every other day random people are handing out free packs of tissues with advertisements so I have a free supply of future snot rags. Anyway, the point I'm trying to come to here is that while I have been able to enjoy the aural, tactile, visual, gustatory and my olfactory unit has pretty much been out of commission. It's finally coming back to me for better or for worse. I say for better because food will likely taste more awesome now. Yeah! For worse, because when I went into the train station to use the bathroom (for real this time, not to just blow my nose before my long ride home) I smelt it. For the first time. Gross. This is probably a bit of an over share on my part, but really, regaining my sense of smell has been one of the more interesting things that has happened to me me today.
My toast is BIG!
More school. Surprise! It was partially cloudy when I stepped outside this morning, but I had only gone a few steps when I felt a bit of drizzle on my forehead. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I ran back into the house and grabbed an umbrella and walked briskly to the train station. Go me. I'm getting a hang of this umbrella business.
Once I got to school, I kind of just stayed there. The rain and my E40 problem set are to blame.
So I've pretty much had a cold the entire time I've been in Japan so far. At first it was a bit of a cough. The cough went away about a week in and was soon replaced with a runny nose. Thankfully, every other day random people are handing out free packs of tissues with advertisements so I have a free supply of future snot rags. Anyway, the point I'm trying to come to here is that while I have been able to enjoy the aural, tactile, visual, gustatory and my olfactory unit has pretty much been out of commission. It's finally coming back to me for better or for worse. I say for better because food will likely taste more awesome now. Yeah! For worse, because when I went into the train station to use the bathroom (for real this time, not to just blow my nose before my long ride home) I smelt it. For the first time. Gross. This is probably a bit of an over share on my part, but really, regaining my sense of smell has been one of the more interesting things that has happened to me me today.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The usual...Day 19
Day 19 - Monday, April 19
School again. Monday, again. Yuck. But at least this time I had a chance to sleep in a bit.
After class I wandered near our school with Prae, David, and Benz. We walked along yet another riverside and visited yet another temple. Surprise! The neat thing is that all the rivers I've been to so far have been pretty distinct and also just plain pretty. This particular river had this area with stepping stones all the way across. The river was pretty wide and hopping from stone to stone was quite fantastic. I enjoy wandering and I enjoy walking so Kyoto is kind of perfect for me.
We We concluded our exploration with a stop at one of the many sweetshops in near our school and I bought some mochi for my host family. Sweetshops, also one of the reasons why Kyoto is perfect for me.
I wish I could say that I did more, but not really. I did get a chance to skype and chat with some family and friends. Technology for the win.
Oh and my JR pass came in the mail today, which means I can start making plans for Golden Week, Japan's weeklong national holiday where people just travel around. Yay! It's like a second spring break after my month long spring break. Unfortunately all this vacation time cuts into my summer. But oh well, it'll give me a chance to explore and wander other parts of Japan.
School again. Monday, again. Yuck. But at least this time I had a chance to sleep in a bit.
After class I wandered near our school with Prae, David, and Benz. We walked along yet another riverside and visited yet another temple. Surprise! The neat thing is that all the rivers I've been to so far have been pretty distinct and also just plain pretty. This particular river had this area with stepping stones all the way across. The river was pretty wide and hopping from stone to stone was quite fantastic. I enjoy wandering and I enjoy walking so Kyoto is kind of perfect for me.
We We concluded our exploration with a stop at one of the many sweetshops in near our school and I bought some mochi for my host family. Sweetshops, also one of the reasons why Kyoto is perfect for me.
I wish I could say that I did more, but not really. I did get a chance to skype and chat with some family and friends. Technology for the win.
Oh and my JR pass came in the mail today, which means I can start making plans for Golden Week, Japan's weeklong national holiday where people just travel around. Yay! It's like a second spring break after my month long spring break. Unfortunately all this vacation time cuts into my summer. But oh well, it'll give me a chance to explore and wander other parts of Japan.
Adventure cooking...Day 18
Day 18 - Sunday, April 18
About a week ago, my host mother asked me if I'd like to participate in a cooking class. I am completely devoid of all feminine talents, culinary included, so I said yeah that would be fun. So she went ahead and found some cooking class and asked me to invite a friend. I opted for Rachel, a Hawaii girl who likes to cook, perfect. So Sunday rolls around and I get out of bed at 7:00 and psych my mind to get ready to cook. The little girl, Ayaka, came over again and was joining us for our cooking class. So all 3 of us rolled out in my host family's yellow toy car to the train station to pick up Rachel.
We park and wait for Rachel in at the local community center. When Rachel comes in, instead of going upstairs in the community center for the cooking class as I had anticipated, we head for the door and to the car. So we're driving and I figure, okay, the cooking class is somewhere else, somewhere, maybe closer to our home. I was wrong. We ended up in the mountains and even got lost on a windy road. Luckily they patrol men on duty in anticipation of clueless vehicles like ours.
We finally get to the cooking class place and I'm a bit surprised, because it looks like we're going for a hike. I looked at Rachel and gave her an "I don't really know what's going on look", because I really didn't. I swear my Japanese isn't that bad and that I totally heard my host mother say cooking class. But who knows, maybe there is some kind of word for 'hiking' that sounds like the word for 'cooking'. I was very much confused.
We catch up to the rest of the group and I see the group leader crouched on the ground near some weeds. He's pulling them out and showing them to everyone. Goody. A weed pulling class!!" was basically what I was thinking, but come to find out instead of a regular cooking class, we had what I like to call an adventure cooking class. We basically walked around the Japanese countryside picking dandelions and other things that most people consider weeds to turn them into something delicious by deep frying them in batter. Yes, we were going to tempura the weeds.
And the weeds were delicious.
As if adventure cooking wasn't cool enough, there was a park there that put Waimea park to shame. It was AWESOME. Big wooden platforms and obstacle course like things with ropes and nets and pure awesomeness everywhere. Rachel, Ayaka, and I played on the playground for a bit. Oh, and the slide. The slide was so sweet. You basically had to climb up through obstacles to get to the slide, but boy was it worth it. The slide had rollers instead of a flat bottom, and was curvy and pretty long. And because of all the lovely friction between your but and the rollers, your butt feels kind of warm and tingly standing up afterwards. Too much information? I think Rachel and I had more fun than Ayaka, we both rode the slide twice, while she went back to my host mother after the first ride down.
After our adventure cooking and play time in the park, my host mother dropped Rachel and I off at the station where we met and Rachel and I walked around town a bit. We walked along a the riverside crossed some lovely bridges, and concluded our exploration by buying some giant apples and eating them in an alleyway like hobos. An awesome end to an awesome day.
About a week ago, my host mother asked me if I'd like to participate in a cooking class. I am completely devoid of all feminine talents, culinary included, so I said yeah that would be fun. So she went ahead and found some cooking class and asked me to invite a friend. I opted for Rachel, a Hawaii girl who likes to cook, perfect. So Sunday rolls around and I get out of bed at 7:00 and psych my mind to get ready to cook. The little girl, Ayaka, came over again and was joining us for our cooking class. So all 3 of us rolled out in my host family's yellow toy car to the train station to pick up Rachel.
We park and wait for Rachel in at the local community center. When Rachel comes in, instead of going upstairs in the community center for the cooking class as I had anticipated, we head for the door and to the car. So we're driving and I figure, okay, the cooking class is somewhere else, somewhere, maybe closer to our home. I was wrong. We ended up in the mountains and even got lost on a windy road. Luckily they patrol men on duty in anticipation of clueless vehicles like ours.
We finally get to the cooking class place and I'm a bit surprised, because it looks like we're going for a hike. I looked at Rachel and gave her an "I don't really know what's going on look", because I really didn't. I swear my Japanese isn't that bad and that I totally heard my host mother say cooking class. But who knows, maybe there is some kind of word for 'hiking' that sounds like the word for 'cooking'. I was very much confused.
We catch up to the rest of the group and I see the group leader crouched on the ground near some weeds. He's pulling them out and showing them to everyone. Goody. A weed pulling class!!" was basically what I was thinking, but come to find out instead of a regular cooking class, we had what I like to call an adventure cooking class. We basically walked around the Japanese countryside picking dandelions and other things that most people consider weeds to turn them into something delicious by deep frying them in batter. Yes, we were going to tempura the weeds.
And the weeds were delicious.
As if adventure cooking wasn't cool enough, there was a park there that put Waimea park to shame. It was AWESOME. Big wooden platforms and obstacle course like things with ropes and nets and pure awesomeness everywhere. Rachel, Ayaka, and I played on the playground for a bit. Oh, and the slide. The slide was so sweet. You basically had to climb up through obstacles to get to the slide, but boy was it worth it. The slide had rollers instead of a flat bottom, and was curvy and pretty long. And because of all the lovely friction between your but and the rollers, your butt feels kind of warm and tingly standing up afterwards. Too much information? I think Rachel and I had more fun than Ayaka, we both rode the slide twice, while she went back to my host mother after the first ride down.
After our adventure cooking and play time in the park, my host mother dropped Rachel and I off at the station where we met and Rachel and I walked around town a bit. We walked along a the riverside crossed some lovely bridges, and concluded our exploration by buying some giant apples and eating them in an alleyway like hobos. An awesome end to an awesome day.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Momoyama...Day 17
Day 17 - Saturday, April 17
Our Religion professor, Ludvik, had given our class a list of festivals during the month of April and Prae asked her which one she thought would be worth checking out this weekend. Ludvik said that the Spring festival going on at Gokonimiya-jinja was definitely worth checking out. So Prae and I decided to go to this shrine and visit the festival for a bit. We decided to meet at 10:45 at the temple. Gokonomiya is located in a small town Momoyama, and I had to change trains from the express to the local just to get there. Kenny gave me a call right before I got on the train and I told him where we were headed and he said he'd probably meet up with us later.
Prae and I got to the shrine and were expecting to see some kind of merry Matsuri going on, instead what we saw was the tail end of some kind of solemn looking ritual. We had missed the festival. Oh noes! Luckily, even though it's kind of tricky to get to Momoyama had a lot of other sites to see and a nice map outside the shrine to guide us. We chose to visit some shrine in the mountains and started trekking up into the woods. There were these two giant Tori areas that were blocked off and giant, what I'm guessing were burial mounds in behind them. There was also this huge HUGE staircase. Prae and I were thankfully at the top and opted to walk down. During this time of exploration Kenny had showed up and I managed to miss both his text and call. But we were all able to meet up at Gokonomiya and strangely enough, he had been wandering in the same area of us, we just missed each other.
By this time we were all hungry. Lunch time! We settled on a small Okonomiyaki restaurant. We each ordered some yaki soba and split a large okonomiyaki. My first okonomiyaki on this trip and it was delicious! Lunch concluded with the purchase of soft serve ice cream and we wandered around Momoyama a bit.
It was kind of amazing, we were the only non Japanese tourists there. It felt like we had discovered some kind of new land unknown to our people. Momoyama was gorgeous by the way. It is known, I guess, for its waters and the riverside walk was beautiful. The sakura season is pretty much over, but the walk was still amazingly gorgeous. Just marvelous. We wandered from the river to another temple and then to an area with a lot a lot of sake houses. We walked in to a gift store but did not take part in the drinking.
All this walking and we were pretty tired. So we went our separate ways and headed home. When I got home I was the only one there so I decided to take a nap. It was about 6:00 when I fell asleep, and I woke up at 10. I had completely missed dinner and felt pretty bad. I went downstairs, showered and went back to sleep. I don't think I ever really woke up, so I luckily didn't really get hungry. And I'm pretty sure my host family thinks I had a bit too much to drink, because my host mother asked it we visited the sake making houses, to which I replied yes. I mean, we went in a gift store, but I'm pretty sure she got the wrong idea. Miscommunication. Oh noes!!
Our Religion professor, Ludvik, had given our class a list of festivals during the month of April and Prae asked her which one she thought would be worth checking out this weekend. Ludvik said that the Spring festival going on at Gokonimiya-jinja was definitely worth checking out. So Prae and I decided to go to this shrine and visit the festival for a bit. We decided to meet at 10:45 at the temple. Gokonomiya is located in a small town Momoyama, and I had to change trains from the express to the local just to get there. Kenny gave me a call right before I got on the train and I told him where we were headed and he said he'd probably meet up with us later.
Prae and I got to the shrine and were expecting to see some kind of merry Matsuri going on, instead what we saw was the tail end of some kind of solemn looking ritual. We had missed the festival. Oh noes! Luckily, even though it's kind of tricky to get to Momoyama had a lot of other sites to see and a nice map outside the shrine to guide us. We chose to visit some shrine in the mountains and started trekking up into the woods. There were these two giant Tori areas that were blocked off and giant, what I'm guessing were burial mounds in behind them. There was also this huge HUGE staircase. Prae and I were thankfully at the top and opted to walk down. During this time of exploration Kenny had showed up and I managed to miss both his text and call. But we were all able to meet up at Gokonomiya and strangely enough, he had been wandering in the same area of us, we just missed each other.
By this time we were all hungry. Lunch time! We settled on a small Okonomiyaki restaurant. We each ordered some yaki soba and split a large okonomiyaki. My first okonomiyaki on this trip and it was delicious! Lunch concluded with the purchase of soft serve ice cream and we wandered around Momoyama a bit.
It was kind of amazing, we were the only non Japanese tourists there. It felt like we had discovered some kind of new land unknown to our people. Momoyama was gorgeous by the way. It is known, I guess, for its waters and the riverside walk was beautiful. The sakura season is pretty much over, but the walk was still amazingly gorgeous. Just marvelous. We wandered from the river to another temple and then to an area with a lot a lot of sake houses. We walked in to a gift store but did not take part in the drinking.
All this walking and we were pretty tired. So we went our separate ways and headed home. When I got home I was the only one there so I decided to take a nap. It was about 6:00 when I fell asleep, and I woke up at 10. I had completely missed dinner and felt pretty bad. I went downstairs, showered and went back to sleep. I don't think I ever really woke up, so I luckily didn't really get hungry. And I'm pretty sure my host family thinks I had a bit too much to drink, because my host mother asked it we visited the sake making houses, to which I replied yes. I mean, we went in a gift store, but I'm pretty sure she got the wrong idea. Miscommunication. Oh noes!!
Note to self: always bring an umbrella...Day 16
Day 16 - Friday, April 16
The cheese here is Magical!!!
I looked outside this morning and the weather was cloudy like the day before, so I assumed that it wouldn't rain like the day before. I was wrong. Oh so wrong. As I walked to my train station I felt a few drops land on my head, a drizzle. I'm from Hilo, I can handle a drizzle, I was good. I did my train riding business, and by the time I got out from underground it was raining. I'm from Hilo, I can handle rain, but what I can't handle is the miserable cold that accompanies rain in a not so tropic place.
Lab finished early and I hung out with some people in the hallway of our building trying to figure out what to do. It was raining and our options were limited. Our program director heard us talking and swooped in on our conversation and convinced us to go to this talk on robotics and anime put on by Tokyo University's CS department for our benefit. It was raining, he's our program director, we didn't have much of an option. The talk however, was kind of boring. The robotics part was cool, but the anime guy just talked about really technical layout and 3D rendering of anime. Not fun. Everyone was falling asleep except for this one boy in our program, Benz, who perked up for the talk and even asked the speaker if he could send in some ideas because he wanted to be an animator or involved in anime, to which the speaker chuckled nervously and said sure.
After the talk and a bus ride back to campus and a trek through the rain to our building everyone was pretty much done for. Soggy and wet we could have gone out, but most of us were pretty much going to throw in our wet towels. But Chelsea, convinced a group of us to go to a bakery instead of heading straight home. There we feasted on delectable baked goods. By this time I was going to miss dinner so the bread in my stomach was a smart move. I caught the train home and sure enough my host mother was in her room watching TV. Thankfully my host father had also come home late and we ate dinner together. Yay food!
The cheese here is Magical!!!
I looked outside this morning and the weather was cloudy like the day before, so I assumed that it wouldn't rain like the day before. I was wrong. Oh so wrong. As I walked to my train station I felt a few drops land on my head, a drizzle. I'm from Hilo, I can handle a drizzle, I was good. I did my train riding business, and by the time I got out from underground it was raining. I'm from Hilo, I can handle rain, but what I can't handle is the miserable cold that accompanies rain in a not so tropic place.
Lab finished early and I hung out with some people in the hallway of our building trying to figure out what to do. It was raining and our options were limited. Our program director heard us talking and swooped in on our conversation and convinced us to go to this talk on robotics and anime put on by Tokyo University's CS department for our benefit. It was raining, he's our program director, we didn't have much of an option. The talk however, was kind of boring. The robotics part was cool, but the anime guy just talked about really technical layout and 3D rendering of anime. Not fun. Everyone was falling asleep except for this one boy in our program, Benz, who perked up for the talk and even asked the speaker if he could send in some ideas because he wanted to be an animator or involved in anime, to which the speaker chuckled nervously and said sure.
After the talk and a bus ride back to campus and a trek through the rain to our building everyone was pretty much done for. Soggy and wet we could have gone out, but most of us were pretty much going to throw in our wet towels. But Chelsea, convinced a group of us to go to a bakery instead of heading straight home. There we feasted on delectable baked goods. By this time I was going to miss dinner so the bread in my stomach was a smart move. I caught the train home and sure enough my host mother was in her room watching TV. Thankfully my host father had also come home late and we ate dinner together. Yay food!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Hey, I just climbed a mountain...Day 15
Day 15 - Thursday, Apr 15
Waking up. So waking up at 7:00 every morning isn't as fun as it sounds. I know, surprise, right? But it's getting kind of old. Especially for a college kid who is used to rolling out of bed 15 minutes before class and then rolling into jeans she's been wearing for the past week, brushing her teeth and biking to class. Yeah, waking up 2 hours before getting to school to have time to eat breakfast and take an hour commute is not exactly my cup of tea. I'm getting used to it, but it could use a little honey to sweeten the deal.
I feel like something happened in class, oh yeah, in our Japanese class, we had some bonafide Japanese people come talk to us. Our class of five students broke into two groups to chat it up with two Nihonjin per group. That was interesting. The going was a bit slow and there were of course awkward pauses, but all in all pretty good. We mostly talked about Japanese culture and being a student and interesting stuff like that.
Today is also my weekly 3 hour class, which would have normally sucked but today we had a field trip to Fushimi Inari shrine. Yay! A little outside of Kyoto, Fushimi Inari shrine is dedicated to the Kami (deity) Inari and her many incarnations. The actual shrine and pilgrimage site according to our professor is actually the entire mountain and there are 3 peaks with various sub shrines where people go to pray and make offerings. You may know this shrine as that place in Memoirs of a Geisha with all the Tori.
Needless to say, it was gorgeous. The weather was perfect for an uphill climb up a mountain, a bit too cold for my typical taste but your body warms up once you start moving and we were moving a lot. Also, the colors were great. The orange (red? People keep telling me it's red, but all I see is orange) against the green was a nice contrast between warm and cold colors all in all very pretty. Apparently there is a giant waterfall there, but we didn't have time to check it out. I'm a fan of waterfalls, but I'm okay with that because we went to an even better place afterwards.
Afterwards was an SCTI program sponsored Farewell/Welcome dinner party at Kyoto Tower Hotel. Farwell, because some programs are coming to an end, Welcome because our program is just beginning. What's better than a tori covered mountain shrine? A fancy schmancy hotel with and endless supply of free food and delicious desserts. Yum. Yum. Yum. We were of course the large obnoxious American group, but really that doesn't matter. The food was awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I was giddy at the site of the dessert buffet. It was beautiful. Practically brought tears to my eyes.
The only terrible part of the entire thing was getting out of that hotel. Apparently, some of the elevators stop going to the floor we were on after 9 PM. Yeah, that would be the time we finished. Two elevators still served our floor, but there were lots and lots of people waiting to go down, so our group tried to be clever and use the stairs, which was pretty difficult. The stairs were near impossible to find. If there is a fire in that hotel everyone above the first floor is going to die, I'm not even joking. But we managed to make it to the sixth floor, caught the elevator from there and freed ourselves from the clutches of the Tokyo Tower Hotel.
Waking up. So waking up at 7:00 every morning isn't as fun as it sounds. I know, surprise, right? But it's getting kind of old. Especially for a college kid who is used to rolling out of bed 15 minutes before class and then rolling into jeans she's been wearing for the past week, brushing her teeth and biking to class. Yeah, waking up 2 hours before getting to school to have time to eat breakfast and take an hour commute is not exactly my cup of tea. I'm getting used to it, but it could use a little honey to sweeten the deal.
I feel like something happened in class, oh yeah, in our Japanese class, we had some bonafide Japanese people come talk to us. Our class of five students broke into two groups to chat it up with two Nihonjin per group. That was interesting. The going was a bit slow and there were of course awkward pauses, but all in all pretty good. We mostly talked about Japanese culture and being a student and interesting stuff like that.
Today is also my weekly 3 hour class, which would have normally sucked but today we had a field trip to Fushimi Inari shrine. Yay! A little outside of Kyoto, Fushimi Inari shrine is dedicated to the Kami (deity) Inari and her many incarnations. The actual shrine and pilgrimage site according to our professor is actually the entire mountain and there are 3 peaks with various sub shrines where people go to pray and make offerings. You may know this shrine as that place in Memoirs of a Geisha with all the Tori.
Needless to say, it was gorgeous. The weather was perfect for an uphill climb up a mountain, a bit too cold for my typical taste but your body warms up once you start moving and we were moving a lot. Also, the colors were great. The orange (red? People keep telling me it's red, but all I see is orange) against the green was a nice contrast between warm and cold colors all in all very pretty. Apparently there is a giant waterfall there, but we didn't have time to check it out. I'm a fan of waterfalls, but I'm okay with that because we went to an even better place afterwards.
Afterwards was an SCTI program sponsored Farewell/Welcome dinner party at Kyoto Tower Hotel. Farwell, because some programs are coming to an end, Welcome because our program is just beginning. What's better than a tori covered mountain shrine? A fancy schmancy hotel with and endless supply of free food and delicious desserts. Yum. Yum. Yum. We were of course the large obnoxious American group, but really that doesn't matter. The food was awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I was giddy at the site of the dessert buffet. It was beautiful. Practically brought tears to my eyes.
The only terrible part of the entire thing was getting out of that hotel. Apparently, some of the elevators stop going to the floor we were on after 9 PM. Yeah, that would be the time we finished. Two elevators still served our floor, but there were lots and lots of people waiting to go down, so our group tried to be clever and use the stairs, which was pretty difficult. The stairs were near impossible to find. If there is a fire in that hotel everyone above the first floor is going to die, I'm not even joking. But we managed to make it to the sixth floor, caught the elevator from there and freed ourselves from the clutches of the Tokyo Tower Hotel.
Ginkaku-ji...Day 14
Day 14 - Wednesday, Apr 14
School! Today it was actually sunny scattered clouds, but sunny. I even wore slippers today, which was a mistake as I had to jog/speedwalk to the train station to make my morning train. Then, when I got to school and the director, Horvat, saw me in slippers he tried to convince me to go buy socks downstairs. He tried to take the it's still cold and too early for slipper wear, but I'm pretty sure he just wanted me to cover up the indecency of my open toes.
Class. Class. Lunch. Have I talked about the cafeteria? I really can't remember, but it's cheap. You can get a decent amount of food for less than 500 yen (including ice cream!) so yeah, score. I had katsu-curry. Both yummy and filling. Oh, but before I go on, I need to talk about my ice cream. It had azuki beans, vanilla ice cream and a cone like shell in the shape of a fish. Awesomeness. My dessert choice was the envy of my table. After lunch I didn't really have any plans. I sat in the center library doing my internet thing and about 20 minutes in Mio, one of the girls in the program I don't think I've mentioned yet, showed up and asked if anyone was free and would like to accompany her and David to Ginkaku-ji. I bolted up packed my bags and was off to Ginkaku-gi via bus five minutes later.
I caught the bus with David (Mio biked) and I had actually never met this David. Apparently (this was news to me too) there are two Davids in this program. At Ginkaku-ji we met up with Mio and walked around a bit outside, checking out shops and a few shrines in the neighborhood. Oh, I bought post cards! So if anyone wants a post card, leave your address as a comment and I'll send one your way. The cool thing is, after looking through most of the post cards, I realize I've been to most of those places. Yay me! We met up with Ben, another person I don't think I've mentioned, and finally went into Ginkaku-ji.
The gardens there are quite gorgeous. There's some Zen sand sculptures other areas with bridges and stones and lush vegetation. We just meandered around the path taking pictures. All in all, not a bad way to spend 500 yen. We even managed to meander to the gift store where I saw the most expensive piece of wood going for about 1,000,000 yen. Silly Zen people.
We left the Temple and a shop selling cream puffs and soft serve ice cream immediately caught our eye. Having met my ice cream quota for the day I went for a sakura cream puff. Yum. After eating our treats, we headed for the Philosopher's Path (at least I think that's what it's called). It's basically a street lined with little shops and cafes and sakura trees. More sakura. One of the shops was pretty cool it sold these tiny mobile like structures. I can't explain it much better than that and we weren't allowed to take pictures, but it was cool. Take my word for it.
And be proud of me, I managed to take an unfamiliar subway line (okay, so I've caught it once before, but that was with supervision) to the correct station. Hooray for me and my crazy navigational skills.
That was my day.
School! Today it was actually sunny scattered clouds, but sunny. I even wore slippers today, which was a mistake as I had to jog/speedwalk to the train station to make my morning train. Then, when I got to school and the director, Horvat, saw me in slippers he tried to convince me to go buy socks downstairs. He tried to take the it's still cold and too early for slipper wear, but I'm pretty sure he just wanted me to cover up the indecency of my open toes.
Class. Class. Lunch. Have I talked about the cafeteria? I really can't remember, but it's cheap. You can get a decent amount of food for less than 500 yen (including ice cream!) so yeah, score. I had katsu-curry. Both yummy and filling. Oh, but before I go on, I need to talk about my ice cream. It had azuki beans, vanilla ice cream and a cone like shell in the shape of a fish. Awesomeness. My dessert choice was the envy of my table. After lunch I didn't really have any plans. I sat in the center library doing my internet thing and about 20 minutes in Mio, one of the girls in the program I don't think I've mentioned yet, showed up and asked if anyone was free and would like to accompany her and David to Ginkaku-ji. I bolted up packed my bags and was off to Ginkaku-gi via bus five minutes later.
I caught the bus with David (Mio biked) and I had actually never met this David. Apparently (this was news to me too) there are two Davids in this program. At Ginkaku-ji we met up with Mio and walked around a bit outside, checking out shops and a few shrines in the neighborhood. Oh, I bought post cards! So if anyone wants a post card, leave your address as a comment and I'll send one your way. The cool thing is, after looking through most of the post cards, I realize I've been to most of those places. Yay me! We met up with Ben, another person I don't think I've mentioned, and finally went into Ginkaku-ji.
The gardens there are quite gorgeous. There's some Zen sand sculptures other areas with bridges and stones and lush vegetation. We just meandered around the path taking pictures. All in all, not a bad way to spend 500 yen. We even managed to meander to the gift store where I saw the most expensive piece of wood going for about 1,000,000 yen. Silly Zen people.
We left the Temple and a shop selling cream puffs and soft serve ice cream immediately caught our eye. Having met my ice cream quota for the day I went for a sakura cream puff. Yum. After eating our treats, we headed for the Philosopher's Path (at least I think that's what it's called). It's basically a street lined with little shops and cafes and sakura trees. More sakura. One of the shops was pretty cool it sold these tiny mobile like structures. I can't explain it much better than that and we weren't allowed to take pictures, but it was cool. Take my word for it.
And be proud of me, I managed to take an unfamiliar subway line (okay, so I've caught it once before, but that was with supervision) to the correct station. Hooray for me and my crazy navigational skills.
That was my day.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Celly phone...Day 13
Day 13 - Tuesday, Apr 13
The weather is still pretty terrible, but at least it didn't rain. But you know what did happen? My morning train was got delayed. I know, I can practically hear you gasping. The Japanese trains fabled for their punctuality, late? How can it be? If my Japanese were better I could probably tell you, however my meager skills were not enough to decipher the rapid slurred Kansai-ben that was spoken over the loud speaker. All I know is that I had to stand on a crowded train for an extra 20 minutes. In the morning. I would have been pretty upset about this (I mean standing, really? Me stand?) but when we de-trained (I know you 'deplane, but do you also 'detrain'. Boom. I made that a word.) everyone in their fancy suits went running for their connecting train. I have gorgeous awesome long legs, so I took advantage of them and picked up my pace a bit, but it was pretty great seeing frantic business men and woman running around the station.
So my EE class is a recording. Sometimes our teaching assistant, Nancy, gives a lecture and other times we're stuck watching the recording with a man who speaks at an unnaturally slow pace. Evidence: today we played the lecture at 1.3 speed and it was a normal talking pace. So we speeded it up to 1.7 because that was still manageable. Plus side of speeding up lecture, aside from not falling asleep, is that it takes less time! Hooray!
Lunch was not particularly eventful, but after lunch I bought this ice cream thing from the convenient store. Yum. Pure frozen goodness right there. One of the other students, Abe, has been buying that particular ice cream everyday so I finally decided to give it a try. Good call, Abe, I like your style. It was delicious. I'm tempted to fall into his habit and just buy that one, but there are so many varieties of frozen confections and so little time.
After school, lunch, dessert and all that goodness Kenny and I went to Au to purchase our phones. It took about 3 1/2 hours to get them. 3 1/2 hours of my life spent waiting that I'll never get back. I don't know why it took so long. The paper work was finished in the first hour, but I think the lady said something about them needing to fax something and receive a reply. So during this 3 1/2 hour wait, Kenny and I did what Kenny and I do best: wander. We wandered our way to the Kyoto station of the Tozai line where there were lanes of shops. We happened to stumble upon a bakery at one point. If you know me, you know my love for bread is almost as intense as my love for ice cream. So we made a stop and bought two pastries a person. So essentially we got to try four. So good.
It was too late to go back to school so I just made my way home, new cell phone in hand. It's kind of clunky, but has an HD video camera and takes pictures. Apparently I can also catch some TV on it. There's even an antennae. But I still don't really know how to use it and the manual is all in Japanese. Oh noes!!! I think I'm going to get a tutorial from one of the guys at school who has one of these bad boys. Save me some time. I'm going for efficiency here. But really, I'm just being lazy.
The weather is still pretty terrible, but at least it didn't rain. But you know what did happen? My morning train was got delayed. I know, I can practically hear you gasping. The Japanese trains fabled for their punctuality, late? How can it be? If my Japanese were better I could probably tell you, however my meager skills were not enough to decipher the rapid slurred Kansai-ben that was spoken over the loud speaker. All I know is that I had to stand on a crowded train for an extra 20 minutes. In the morning. I would have been pretty upset about this (I mean standing, really? Me stand?) but when we de-trained (I know you 'deplane, but do you also 'detrain'. Boom. I made that a word.) everyone in their fancy suits went running for their connecting train. I have gorgeous awesome long legs, so I took advantage of them and picked up my pace a bit, but it was pretty great seeing frantic business men and woman running around the station.
So my EE class is a recording. Sometimes our teaching assistant, Nancy, gives a lecture and other times we're stuck watching the recording with a man who speaks at an unnaturally slow pace. Evidence: today we played the lecture at 1.3 speed and it was a normal talking pace. So we speeded it up to 1.7 because that was still manageable. Plus side of speeding up lecture, aside from not falling asleep, is that it takes less time! Hooray!
Lunch was not particularly eventful, but after lunch I bought this ice cream thing from the convenient store. Yum. Pure frozen goodness right there. One of the other students, Abe, has been buying that particular ice cream everyday so I finally decided to give it a try. Good call, Abe, I like your style. It was delicious. I'm tempted to fall into his habit and just buy that one, but there are so many varieties of frozen confections and so little time.
After school, lunch, dessert and all that goodness Kenny and I went to Au to purchase our phones. It took about 3 1/2 hours to get them. 3 1/2 hours of my life spent waiting that I'll never get back. I don't know why it took so long. The paper work was finished in the first hour, but I think the lady said something about them needing to fax something and receive a reply. So during this 3 1/2 hour wait, Kenny and I did what Kenny and I do best: wander. We wandered our way to the Kyoto station of the Tozai line where there were lanes of shops. We happened to stumble upon a bakery at one point. If you know me, you know my love for bread is almost as intense as my love for ice cream. So we made a stop and bought two pastries a person. So essentially we got to try four. So good.
It was too late to go back to school so I just made my way home, new cell phone in hand. It's kind of clunky, but has an HD video camera and takes pictures. Apparently I can also catch some TV on it. There's even an antennae. But I still don't really know how to use it and the manual is all in Japanese. Oh noes!!! I think I'm going to get a tutorial from one of the guys at school who has one of these bad boys. Save me some time. I'm going for efficiency here. But really, I'm just being lazy.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Rain, Rain...Day 12
Day 12 - Monday, Apr 12
Ugh. Monday. The weather today was obviously holding the same opinion, as it decided to rain continuously. The only thing I do like about the rain here is that everyone busts out their umbrellas. Basically, you get this sea of umbrellas moving down sidewalks and pathways. Factor in the fact that these umbrellas are different colors and designs and you have awesomeness. Sadly, walking in the sea of umbrellas sucks. You can't appreciate its beauty and there is a lot of umbrella snaggage (yeah, I just made that a word).
Rain. Rain. Yes. I got to school early, because I was supposed to have a telephone conference with my boss for this summer. I say 'was supposed to' because it failed and the reasons are twofold. Firstly, I couldn't figure out how to dial out the number. I even had the office lady help me and it didn't work. Secondly, My boss probably failed to realize that my javascript:void(0)Monday morning is his Sunday night. Oh, you silly dateline, you.
And just in case you are interested, this is the job description I was given for my work this summer:
As an engineering intern for the Invasive Cardiology group in GE Healthcare-Clinical Systems, you will be become a team member in the new product development team working on a product that gets used by physicians to diagonse and treat patients that suffer coronary heart disease. As part of this team, you will learn the various aspects of releasing a product to market from an engineering standpoint (e.g. requirements definition, detailed design and implementation, and design verification and validation) as well as in acquiring clinical knowledge in the area of Invasive Cardiology (e.g. Hemodynamics and Electrophysiology). The assignment will consist of: Hands-on work with hardware engineers assembling board prototypes, testing prototype boards, reworking circuit boards, cables, connectors, creating test jigs. This contributions are essential to the hardware development efforts towards the design and development of the PANDORA Physiological Waveform simlator and the next generation PARADOX signal amplifier.
Sounds cool. Hopefully I'll learn enough in E40 to be able to do this stuff. Haha.
Then class, then food. Ramen to be exact. Kenny, Kevin, Rachel and I (the four Hawaii kids in the program (no we're not elitist)) went to the same ramen place that Kenny and I had eaten at before. We actually tried to eat at this small curry dive, but it was so small (I'm talking about only 10 stools available total small) that our group of four was not going to get in during lunch rush hour. But it was cold outside so the ramen was a good runner up to the the curry option.
I don't smoke, but I make an exception for Pocky.
After the ramen I made my way home early. I was on a mission, again, but this time to get the right papers so I can get a cell phone. The major problem being I was doing this by myself. Yeah, to be honest, my Japanese is not that good enough to facilitate me obtaining this thing on my own, and my sense of direction (which barely gets me around Prince Kuhio Plaza, Hilo's dinky mall (so dinky it's called a Plaza)) to get there. By some miracle I find City Hall and even get to the right desk, but the guy they send to help me spoke the most slurred mumbled Japanese I have heard in my life. I had to ask him again and again to repeat himself. But I got the paperwork done and now have my gaikokujin-toroku-genpyo-kisai-jiko-shomeisho. Yeah, that's what the paper is called. I think it's some kind of joke they have, like, "let's give this thing the most ridiculous name ever and make non native speakers seek it out". Twittering laughter ensues. Actually, I'm sure if I actually knew what all those words meant, it'd make more sense.
Bottom line: I'm all set to get my cell phone tomorrow. I think I'm going to get the one with an HD video (yeah, HD) and camera, seeing as my camera is small kine broken. Also I'll be able to email as much as I want with my phone. Hooray!
Time for work or maybe a nap. Yes, a nap sounds good.
Also, I was almost eaten by the biggest spider EVER! Okay, so it was about two inches and I'm a fan of Charlotte's Web so I know what's up, but even so, scary.
Ugh. Monday. The weather today was obviously holding the same opinion, as it decided to rain continuously. The only thing I do like about the rain here is that everyone busts out their umbrellas. Basically, you get this sea of umbrellas moving down sidewalks and pathways. Factor in the fact that these umbrellas are different colors and designs and you have awesomeness. Sadly, walking in the sea of umbrellas sucks. You can't appreciate its beauty and there is a lot of umbrella snaggage (yeah, I just made that a word).
Rain. Rain. Yes. I got to school early, because I was supposed to have a telephone conference with my boss for this summer. I say 'was supposed to' because it failed and the reasons are twofold. Firstly, I couldn't figure out how to dial out the number. I even had the office lady help me and it didn't work. Secondly, My boss probably failed to realize that my javascript:void(0)Monday morning is his Sunday night. Oh, you silly dateline, you.
And just in case you are interested, this is the job description I was given for my work this summer:
As an engineering intern for the Invasive Cardiology group in GE Healthcare-Clinical Systems, you will be become a team member in the new product development team working on a product that gets used by physicians to diagonse and treat patients that suffer coronary heart disease. As part of this team, you will learn the various aspects of releasing a product to market from an engineering standpoint (e.g. requirements definition, detailed design and implementation, and design verification and validation) as well as in acquiring clinical knowledge in the area of Invasive Cardiology (e.g. Hemodynamics and Electrophysiology). The assignment will consist of: Hands-on work with hardware engineers assembling board prototypes, testing prototype boards, reworking circuit boards, cables, connectors, creating test jigs. This contributions are essential to the hardware development efforts towards the design and development of the PANDORA Physiological Waveform simlator and the next generation PARADOX signal amplifier.
Sounds cool. Hopefully I'll learn enough in E40 to be able to do this stuff. Haha.
Then class, then food. Ramen to be exact. Kenny, Kevin, Rachel and I (the four Hawaii kids in the program (no we're not elitist)) went to the same ramen place that Kenny and I had eaten at before. We actually tried to eat at this small curry dive, but it was so small (I'm talking about only 10 stools available total small) that our group of four was not going to get in during lunch rush hour. But it was cold outside so the ramen was a good runner up to the the curry option.
I don't smoke, but I make an exception for Pocky.
After the ramen I made my way home early. I was on a mission, again, but this time to get the right papers so I can get a cell phone. The major problem being I was doing this by myself. Yeah, to be honest, my Japanese is not that good enough to facilitate me obtaining this thing on my own, and my sense of direction (which barely gets me around Prince Kuhio Plaza, Hilo's dinky mall (so dinky it's called a Plaza)) to get there. By some miracle I find City Hall and even get to the right desk, but the guy they send to help me spoke the most slurred mumbled Japanese I have heard in my life. I had to ask him again and again to repeat himself. But I got the paperwork done and now have my gaikokujin-toroku-genpyo-kisai-jiko-shomeisho. Yeah, that's what the paper is called. I think it's some kind of joke they have, like, "let's give this thing the most ridiculous name ever and make non native speakers seek it out". Twittering laughter ensues. Actually, I'm sure if I actually knew what all those words meant, it'd make more sense.
Bottom line: I'm all set to get my cell phone tomorrow. I think I'm going to get the one with an HD video (yeah, HD) and camera, seeing as my camera is small kine broken. Also I'll be able to email as much as I want with my phone. Hooray!
Time for work or maybe a nap. Yes, a nap sounds good.
Also, I was almost eaten by the biggest spider EVER! Okay, so it was about two inches and I'm a fan of Charlotte's Web so I know what's up, but even so, scary.
Kyomizu Dera, Finally...Day 11
Day 11 - Sunday, Apr 11
Today I was supposed to meet Prae and Kenny to pick up our cell phones and take advantage of the group discount offered by Au (one of the major cell phone providers in Japan). We were supposed to meet at the Karasuma Oike stop at 11:30. However, I've fallen into the habit of only paying attention to the minutes hand when reading time and I ended up arirving what I thought to be 20 minutes late, but what was actually 40 minutes early. The sad thing is, it took me another 10-15 minutes to figure out why they hadn't shown up yet. Yes, I can't tell time.
Once everyone had arrived at the station, we made our way over to the Au store, where we soon find out that all of us lacked one of the essential items for getting the cell phone. Prae forgot her passport, Kenny didn't obtain the correct paperwork. But me, I out did both of them. I had the wrong paperwork and failed to bring my passport. We failed together.
Failing so hard really works up an appetite, so we went wandering around the area and ended up on Shijo street and found this pretty sweet restaurant underground. The restaurant looked pretty traditional, we even had to remove our shoes and put them in wooden lockers. Our eating area was a private table on Tatami with pillows for our oshiri. I had tenpura udon, Prae had some sashimi business, and Kenny had doria, which we still don't really know what it is but it does seem to have a lot of mayo.
After that we wandered our way to a department store where we realized how thankful we were to live in a country where normal clothes don't cost $100 for a shirt. Well, at least where we shop. I have yet to find a department store selling T-shirts for less than $50 dollars in American money. Prae was supposed to meet up with a friend that currently lives in Kyoto, so Kenny and I doubled back to find that street with the cherry blossoms and the river that we ran across the night before we left for our home stays. Sadly, the weather wasn't the greatest, but it was still very pretty.
We then wandered our way to Maruyama Park, with lots of, yes you guessed it, cherry blossoms and Yasaka Shrine. But where I really wanted to go was Kyomizu Temple. We were on a mission. Sadly that mission took us on a trek up a mountain that was thankfully lined with free samples of mochi. We wandered, and in true wandering spirit found a shrine dedicated to the fallen soldiers in WWII and that housed the largest concrete Bodhisattva I have ever seen. I think the pamphlet said it was 24 meters high. Totally picture worthy.
Finally, after much much much walking we reached Kyomizu Temple. It sits in the mountains, so the view of Kyoto from there is absolutely amazing and the grounds are equally gorgeous. We wandered around did the tourist picture taking and went down to get our drink on. From the holy streams water, of course. There were 3. I think drinking from one of them is supposed to give you good fortune in different areas like health and you know, life.
By this time we were tired. Tired. Tired. We had wandered like crazy and were ready to head back. So we walked down the mountain and got side tracked in true Hawaiian style by food. We bought 16 mini-soymilk donuts. Now, I know what you're thinking. Soy milk donuts, Anya, you hippie, next thing you know you'll be hugging bonsai trees. But trust, these donuts were delicious and would sate any snack craving carnivore. We killed them in about 5 minutes and continued our trek. Long trek. I want to google map our general route. I'm sure we walked more than 4 miles, easy.
I do so much walking here, I feel like I'm in one of those epic fantasy novels making my way through Middle Earth or something. But really I'm just exploring and getting lost in central Kyoto. It's still fun, though. Fun. Fun. Fun.
Today I was supposed to meet Prae and Kenny to pick up our cell phones and take advantage of the group discount offered by Au (one of the major cell phone providers in Japan). We were supposed to meet at the Karasuma Oike stop at 11:30. However, I've fallen into the habit of only paying attention to the minutes hand when reading time and I ended up arirving what I thought to be 20 minutes late, but what was actually 40 minutes early. The sad thing is, it took me another 10-15 minutes to figure out why they hadn't shown up yet. Yes, I can't tell time.
Once everyone had arrived at the station, we made our way over to the Au store, where we soon find out that all of us lacked one of the essential items for getting the cell phone. Prae forgot her passport, Kenny didn't obtain the correct paperwork. But me, I out did both of them. I had the wrong paperwork and failed to bring my passport. We failed together.
Failing so hard really works up an appetite, so we went wandering around the area and ended up on Shijo street and found this pretty sweet restaurant underground. The restaurant looked pretty traditional, we even had to remove our shoes and put them in wooden lockers. Our eating area was a private table on Tatami with pillows for our oshiri. I had tenpura udon, Prae had some sashimi business, and Kenny had doria, which we still don't really know what it is but it does seem to have a lot of mayo.
After that we wandered our way to a department store where we realized how thankful we were to live in a country where normal clothes don't cost $100 for a shirt. Well, at least where we shop. I have yet to find a department store selling T-shirts for less than $50 dollars in American money. Prae was supposed to meet up with a friend that currently lives in Kyoto, so Kenny and I doubled back to find that street with the cherry blossoms and the river that we ran across the night before we left for our home stays. Sadly, the weather wasn't the greatest, but it was still very pretty.
We then wandered our way to Maruyama Park, with lots of, yes you guessed it, cherry blossoms and Yasaka Shrine. But where I really wanted to go was Kyomizu Temple. We were on a mission. Sadly that mission took us on a trek up a mountain that was thankfully lined with free samples of mochi. We wandered, and in true wandering spirit found a shrine dedicated to the fallen soldiers in WWII and that housed the largest concrete Bodhisattva I have ever seen. I think the pamphlet said it was 24 meters high. Totally picture worthy.
Finally, after much much much walking we reached Kyomizu Temple. It sits in the mountains, so the view of Kyoto from there is absolutely amazing and the grounds are equally gorgeous. We wandered around did the tourist picture taking and went down to get our drink on. From the holy streams water, of course. There were 3. I think drinking from one of them is supposed to give you good fortune in different areas like health and you know, life.
By this time we were tired. Tired. Tired. We had wandered like crazy and were ready to head back. So we walked down the mountain and got side tracked in true Hawaiian style by food. We bought 16 mini-soymilk donuts. Now, I know what you're thinking. Soy milk donuts, Anya, you hippie, next thing you know you'll be hugging bonsai trees. But trust, these donuts were delicious and would sate any snack craving carnivore. We killed them in about 5 minutes and continued our trek. Long trek. I want to google map our general route. I'm sure we walked more than 4 miles, easy.
I do so much walking here, I feel like I'm in one of those epic fantasy novels making my way through Middle Earth or something. But really I'm just exploring and getting lost in central Kyoto. It's still fun, though. Fun. Fun. Fun.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Day 10
I have to do homework so I can go out tomorrow and play. Nothing interesting to see here. Move along, now.
My host family has a pet bird.
My host family has a pet bird.
Arashiyama...Day 9
Day 9
All of the lucky engineering kids had to go into school today for a lab. Thankfully it was just the first lab and it was relatively simple so we got out of class early. Hooray!
One of the other kids in the program got a group together to visit Arashiyama. So after lab and I met up with our group (about 15) and headed to the cafeteria for lunch. Everything was going fine and dandy, until we realized, that no one really knew how to actually get to Arashiyama. Suggestions were flying, we should take the bus, we should take the train, we should bike. In the end the group split into two and one group caught the train and the other biked.
I opted for the train group, as I don't have a bike here. Amazingly, we reached Arashiyama at the same time the biker gang rolled up. So we rounded our troops and took a stroll along a gorgeous bridge that had gave a beautiful view of the mountain, sakura and the town. After that stroll, we ended up at the base of monkey mountain. I have no idea what it's actually called because everyone was calling it monkey mountain, which is an accurate description.
The signs were hilarious, by the way.
The entrance fee for monkey mountain, however was 550 yen, which in student terms means one meal. So our group was divided again. Despite my Pake blood, I opted for the trek up monkey mountain. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the top and the view from the observation deck was amazing and worth the 550 yen, itself. The monkeys were also pretty fun to watch, we weren't allowed to get near them (honestly you wouldn't want to they can be kind of scary) but we took lots of pictures.
The walk down was almost as rewarding as the walk up, there was a huge slide. Like a two story high slide. Fun. Fun. Fun. But during the walk down our monkey mountain group got split in two. My group had forded on while the other group was no where to be found. We waited for about 20 minutes before deciding that the other group was probably kidnapped by the monkeys and that there was nothing we could do for them. We then made our way to this crazy bamboo forest grove. So pretty.
Funny thing is, after walking around the bamboo forest for a bit, we ran into the first group that declined to climb monkey mountain and eventually the other monkey mountain climbers found our large group and we made our way for the train station. Along the way there were a bunch of vendors selling ice cream. Delicious soft serve ice cream. I got a cone with four flavors. Four! Vanilla on the bottom, then green tea, then some other tea (houji I think), and sakura on top. Yummmmmm. Pretty much the highlight of my day.
All of the lucky engineering kids had to go into school today for a lab. Thankfully it was just the first lab and it was relatively simple so we got out of class early. Hooray!
One of the other kids in the program got a group together to visit Arashiyama. So after lab and I met up with our group (about 15) and headed to the cafeteria for lunch. Everything was going fine and dandy, until we realized, that no one really knew how to actually get to Arashiyama. Suggestions were flying, we should take the bus, we should take the train, we should bike. In the end the group split into two and one group caught the train and the other biked.
I opted for the train group, as I don't have a bike here. Amazingly, we reached Arashiyama at the same time the biker gang rolled up. So we rounded our troops and took a stroll along a gorgeous bridge that had gave a beautiful view of the mountain, sakura and the town. After that stroll, we ended up at the base of monkey mountain. I have no idea what it's actually called because everyone was calling it monkey mountain, which is an accurate description.
The signs were hilarious, by the way.
The entrance fee for monkey mountain, however was 550 yen, which in student terms means one meal. So our group was divided again. Despite my Pake blood, I opted for the trek up monkey mountain. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the top and the view from the observation deck was amazing and worth the 550 yen, itself. The monkeys were also pretty fun to watch, we weren't allowed to get near them (honestly you wouldn't want to they can be kind of scary) but we took lots of pictures.
The walk down was almost as rewarding as the walk up, there was a huge slide. Like a two story high slide. Fun. Fun. Fun. But during the walk down our monkey mountain group got split in two. My group had forded on while the other group was no where to be found. We waited for about 20 minutes before deciding that the other group was probably kidnapped by the monkeys and that there was nothing we could do for them. We then made our way to this crazy bamboo forest grove. So pretty.
Funny thing is, after walking around the bamboo forest for a bit, we ran into the first group that declined to climb monkey mountain and eventually the other monkey mountain climbers found our large group and we made our way for the train station. Along the way there were a bunch of vendors selling ice cream. Delicious soft serve ice cream. I got a cone with four flavors. Four! Vanilla on the bottom, then green tea, then some other tea (houji I think), and sakura on top. Yummmmmm. Pretty much the highlight of my day.
More school and a Palace...Day7/8
Day 7/8
More school! This whole school bit is cutting into my exploring Japan time. However, I still manage to get out and about a bit. Or at least I did on Wednesday. After class, another girl and I walked over to the Imperial Palace. If you recall (depending on if I wrote it) I visited the Imperial Palace on the day I met my host family. We wandered around the grounds outside.
The falling petals were prettier in person.
As it turns out, the inner courts of the Imperial Palace is usually closed and opens for about 5 days a year. A year! Crazy, huh? Anyway, by some happy chance, the Imperial palace opened on the 5th, so Prae and I wandered over after lunch. It was pretty cool. Large spacious buildings gorgeous gardens. Well worth the walk over. And outside the palace there were a bunch of stands selling treats with free samples! Yum.
Bright!
Garden!
That was the most interesting thing that happened over those two days. On Thursday (day 8) I had class from 3-6:30, which cut into my explore Japan time. I know what you're thinking, three hours of class! Yeah, kind of painful, but not too bad. It's a Japanese religion class, so part of it is spent in story time mode where we get to hear about Japanese mythology.
More school! This whole school bit is cutting into my exploring Japan time. However, I still manage to get out and about a bit. Or at least I did on Wednesday. After class, another girl and I walked over to the Imperial Palace. If you recall (depending on if I wrote it) I visited the Imperial Palace on the day I met my host family. We wandered around the grounds outside.
The falling petals were prettier in person.
As it turns out, the inner courts of the Imperial Palace is usually closed and opens for about 5 days a year. A year! Crazy, huh? Anyway, by some happy chance, the Imperial palace opened on the 5th, so Prae and I wandered over after lunch. It was pretty cool. Large spacious buildings gorgeous gardens. Well worth the walk over. And outside the palace there were a bunch of stands selling treats with free samples! Yum.
Bright!
Garden!
That was the most interesting thing that happened over those two days. On Thursday (day 8) I had class from 3-6:30, which cut into my explore Japan time. I know what you're thinking, three hours of class! Yeah, kind of painful, but not too bad. It's a Japanese religion class, so part of it is spent in story time mode where we get to hear about Japanese mythology.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
I'm an alien! Well, sort of...Day 6
Day 6
Second day of school. School is school, anywhere you go. I forgot that in signing up for this program I'm actually supposed to learn things. Crazy, I know. I'm still trying to cope with it. Also, I've had the longest spring break known to man. I finished finals early, so essentially my spring break was three weeks long. A week in Seattle. A week at home. A week in Japan. It was basically as long as my Christmas break.
Today was my first real run of catching the train to school all by my lonesome. It didn't go too bad. I managed to snag a seat on my first train, although I took a wrong turn while exiting and tried to enter the bullet train waiting area instead of the subway area. Ooops. At least I like to think it's trivial. It is. It is. I got to school on time with a few minutes to spare so I went on my computer (ahhhhhh wifi) to kill time.
My first class was Introduction to Electronics. Probably the most painful lecture I have ever sat through, mostly due to the fact that the lecturer talked. Did I mention it was a recording? A recording from four years ago.
After my classes were done I went with a large group of people to hunt down a place to eat. There were about 15 of us, which would have made it impossible for us to eat at a restaurant, so we settled for the dining hall at a nearby campus. Surprise, surprise, they served the exact same food as our dining hall. But I like to think that we really went for the journey and camaraderie, not the food. Okay, we mostly went for the food.
On the walk back to our campus, we paused by some Sakura trees. The wind was blowing and the petals were falling like snow. So pretty like some kind crazy J drama. I half expected some metro Japanese boy to grab some stylish Japanese girl and confess his love, which unlike the sakura is not a fleeting thing. But no, the metro Japanese boys and stylish Japanese girls continued to sit and be normal.
I met my host mother at Kyoto Tower Hotel. From there we went over to the Kyoto Station so I could purchase my 3 month subway pass. Thank goodness she was there. I'm pretty sure it would have been rather impossible for me to do all of that on my own. We then went to the JR window to purchase my JR monthly pass. Finally, I don't have to go to the window before every train ride and buy a new ticket. Totally saves me like a minute. Hooray!
Tokyo Tower.
After all that bus pass business, which by the way was not cheap one bit (thank goodness we get a travel stipend) my host mother took me to apply for an alien registration card. Although I don't technically need one, since I'm staying for less than six months, in order to get a cell phone, I need to present one of those bad boys. That was a big ball of fun. And I received the customary 'Oh, you're from Hawaii' stare when I wrote out my birthplace.
Did I mention my host family has a dog? Did I mention that dog absolutely loves me? I don't even know why. It's a little dog, I've never been a huge fan of little dogs, but I've been decently nice to this one (it's soft, that helps) but this little thing just jumps in my lap every chance it gets. Anyways, I mention this because after my application to become an alien, we went to visit a shrine. This is the first shrine that I've been to that wasn't completely crowded and packed with people. In fact, no one was there except for my host mother, Sheru (the dog) and me. I liked it. I wish more of the shrines in Kyoto were quiet like that. But then Kyoto wouldn't be Kyoto.
After that, after that, home dinner, the usual. Oh! But there was this fad diet show on TV that my host mother was just eating up. No pun intended, seriously. Apparently you'll get skinny if you eat half an avocado before every meal or eat a bunch of kiwis, just kiwis for breakfast. The show followed the hottest 70 year old woman ever and another woman, the fattest Japanese woman I have ever seen. Both lost weight, and my host mother guaranteed me that by tomorrow there would be no kiwis or avocados to be found in the super markets. It's Japan, they pick up fads like hobos pick up loose change.
Bath bed. I'm tired. I need to get more sleep.
Second day of school. School is school, anywhere you go. I forgot that in signing up for this program I'm actually supposed to learn things. Crazy, I know. I'm still trying to cope with it. Also, I've had the longest spring break known to man. I finished finals early, so essentially my spring break was three weeks long. A week in Seattle. A week at home. A week in Japan. It was basically as long as my Christmas break.
Today was my first real run of catching the train to school all by my lonesome. It didn't go too bad. I managed to snag a seat on my first train, although I took a wrong turn while exiting and tried to enter the bullet train waiting area instead of the subway area. Ooops. At least I like to think it's trivial. It is. It is. I got to school on time with a few minutes to spare so I went on my computer (ahhhhhh wifi) to kill time.
My first class was Introduction to Electronics. Probably the most painful lecture I have ever sat through, mostly due to the fact that the lecturer talked. Did I mention it was a recording? A recording from four years ago.
After my classes were done I went with a large group of people to hunt down a place to eat. There were about 15 of us, which would have made it impossible for us to eat at a restaurant, so we settled for the dining hall at a nearby campus. Surprise, surprise, they served the exact same food as our dining hall. But I like to think that we really went for the journey and camaraderie, not the food. Okay, we mostly went for the food.
On the walk back to our campus, we paused by some Sakura trees. The wind was blowing and the petals were falling like snow. So pretty like some kind crazy J drama. I half expected some metro Japanese boy to grab some stylish Japanese girl and confess his love, which unlike the sakura is not a fleeting thing. But no, the metro Japanese boys and stylish Japanese girls continued to sit and be normal.
I met my host mother at Kyoto Tower Hotel. From there we went over to the Kyoto Station so I could purchase my 3 month subway pass. Thank goodness she was there. I'm pretty sure it would have been rather impossible for me to do all of that on my own. We then went to the JR window to purchase my JR monthly pass. Finally, I don't have to go to the window before every train ride and buy a new ticket. Totally saves me like a minute. Hooray!
Tokyo Tower.
After all that bus pass business, which by the way was not cheap one bit (thank goodness we get a travel stipend) my host mother took me to apply for an alien registration card. Although I don't technically need one, since I'm staying for less than six months, in order to get a cell phone, I need to present one of those bad boys. That was a big ball of fun. And I received the customary 'Oh, you're from Hawaii' stare when I wrote out my birthplace.
Did I mention my host family has a dog? Did I mention that dog absolutely loves me? I don't even know why. It's a little dog, I've never been a huge fan of little dogs, but I've been decently nice to this one (it's soft, that helps) but this little thing just jumps in my lap every chance it gets. Anyways, I mention this because after my application to become an alien, we went to visit a shrine. This is the first shrine that I've been to that wasn't completely crowded and packed with people. In fact, no one was there except for my host mother, Sheru (the dog) and me. I liked it. I wish more of the shrines in Kyoto were quiet like that. But then Kyoto wouldn't be Kyoto.
After that, after that, home dinner, the usual. Oh! But there was this fad diet show on TV that my host mother was just eating up. No pun intended, seriously. Apparently you'll get skinny if you eat half an avocado before every meal or eat a bunch of kiwis, just kiwis for breakfast. The show followed the hottest 70 year old woman ever and another woman, the fattest Japanese woman I have ever seen. Both lost weight, and my host mother guaranteed me that by tomorrow there would be no kiwis or avocados to be found in the super markets. It's Japan, they pick up fads like hobos pick up loose change.
Bath bed. I'm tired. I need to get more sleep.
Monday, April 5, 2010
First Day of School...Day 5
Day 5
This was my first day of school. I'm 21 and I still get nervous before my first day of school. asked my host mother when I should wake up to leave and she said at 7. 7? That's positively criminal. I haven't woken up that early since highschool, I expected to hear that kind of reply, but the confirmation of it was still not comforting. I guess I've gotten spoiled at Stanford where I can wake up 15 minutes before a class and still get there in time.
I was pretty nervous about catching the train and subway to school, but luckily my host mother was there to guide me on my first day. We took the JR line together, and after getting off at Kyoto station, she pointed me in the right direction.
So I was at school and had about an hour to kill, so I hopped on the internet and added pictures to my blog. Pictures!!! And then class started. Class was, well, class. I'm pretty sure it's kind of universal thing and today was no exception. It was some introduction and a mini lecture.
Everything was all fine and dandy until I realized that I had the wrong edition of the book. Let me explain here, I did not take a lick of Japanese this year and as it turns out, this year is the year the book company decided to churn out an updated version of the book. Jerks. So me and another boy after class went on Amazon to find the book. They didn't carry it. So we did the very bold thing of going on the Japaense Amazon to order it. They did have it. So we (by we I mean he) had to go through the trouble of setting up an account and completing the transaction. Fun. Not fun. Fun. So I'm out 5,000 yen now all because a book company had to keep their merchandise up to date. The nerve.
On a happier note, we got to eat these adorable little Japanese snacks filled with red bean paste that sat prettily upon a printed paper and a mini wooden mat. So cute. So delicious. Unfortunately I did not have my broken camera on me at that time, so no pictures. I know, the disappointment ensues.
After school and the ordering was done, a group of us decided to take the Karasuma line to Shijo, some kind of shopping district (so I hear) where we walked around for a bit before heading our separate ways back home. Yay spontaneity! Oh yeah, we did end up sitting in a little cafe where we got to eat some ice cream. Yum.
Back at home it was the usual dinner bit and shower bit and bed business.
This was my first day of school. I'm 21 and I still get nervous before my first day of school. asked my host mother when I should wake up to leave and she said at 7. 7? That's positively criminal. I haven't woken up that early since highschool, I expected to hear that kind of reply, but the confirmation of it was still not comforting. I guess I've gotten spoiled at Stanford where I can wake up 15 minutes before a class and still get there in time.
I was pretty nervous about catching the train and subway to school, but luckily my host mother was there to guide me on my first day. We took the JR line together, and after getting off at Kyoto station, she pointed me in the right direction.
So I was at school and had about an hour to kill, so I hopped on the internet and added pictures to my blog. Pictures!!! And then class started. Class was, well, class. I'm pretty sure it's kind of universal thing and today was no exception. It was some introduction and a mini lecture.
Everything was all fine and dandy until I realized that I had the wrong edition of the book. Let me explain here, I did not take a lick of Japanese this year and as it turns out, this year is the year the book company decided to churn out an updated version of the book. Jerks. So me and another boy after class went on Amazon to find the book. They didn't carry it. So we did the very bold thing of going on the Japaense Amazon to order it. They did have it. So we (by we I mean he) had to go through the trouble of setting up an account and completing the transaction. Fun. Not fun. Fun. So I'm out 5,000 yen now all because a book company had to keep their merchandise up to date. The nerve.
On a happier note, we got to eat these adorable little Japanese snacks filled with red bean paste that sat prettily upon a printed paper and a mini wooden mat. So cute. So delicious. Unfortunately I did not have my broken camera on me at that time, so no pictures. I know, the disappointment ensues.
After school and the ordering was done, a group of us decided to take the Karasuma line to Shijo, some kind of shopping district (so I hear) where we walked around for a bit before heading our separate ways back home. Yay spontaneity! Oh yeah, we did end up sitting in a little cafe where we got to eat some ice cream. Yum.
Back at home it was the usual dinner bit and shower bit and bed business.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Host Family...Day 4
Day 4
My first full day with my host family. In order to not completely fail and be disrespectful I asked when would be a good time to wake up. 8 ish is breakfast, so I was up and about by 7:50 just in case. I feel like I have an internal alarm clock. Back at Stanford I usually wake up a few minutes before my alarm rings. It is possible that my body just gets used to it, but I'll go with the former, it makes me sound cooler. Like a robot. Breakfast was eggs business with toast as well as some fruit and yogurt.
I hadn't finished unpacking so I went back up to my room to arrange everything in my cozy little room. At some point, I hear peals of girlish laughter. Young girl laughter. As it turns out my host family had arranged to watch this girl for the day for her grandparents. I had not banked on entertaining a 7 year old girl, so when she showed up in my room I was pretty surprised. I also had no idea what to do with her. So I gave her my big bumble bee and asked her questions in broken Japanese as I continued to unpack. At some point I showed her pictures of home and Hawaii. One thing led to another and before I knew it I had introduced her to Photobooth. Thank you Apple for the invention of Photobooth. You may not have any games that would entertain a young girl, but pictures, your pictures and effects are more than anyone could dream of. Thank you. Basically we took a lot of pictures. A lot, a lot of pictures. I'm talking about over 100 pictures here.
At some point my host mother came into my room and informed us that we would be walking over to a nearby park. There we played tennis (on a court with no net (yeah pretty ghetto)) as well as badminton. My host mother brought jump rope and I totally schooled everyone in jump rope. Over 50 times in a row. They couldn't even touch this. The day was warm and in my old age we tire easily, so we walked back after spending an hour or so in the park.
Before we knew it, it was lunchtime!
I tried natto for the first time. My reaction: hmmmmmmm. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn't good, I mean I've smelt public bathrooms that are more aromatic than that fermented stringy goodness, but it was totally edible. I ate a little bit. Granted I ate a lot of rice following it, but I ate it without gagging, which probably disappointed my host family. I told them that I had never eaten it before, so they were probably waiting to see if I would lurch it back up. But I gave them so such satisfaction. I'm probably making that last bit up, but my host father was watching me expectantly.
Following dinner the girl, Ayaka (I accidentally typed Akaka at first), asked to go back to my room for more Photobooth. Thank you, Apple. But being young and lively with the attention span of a puppy or maybe it was because we had exhausted all of the effects, either way we ended up outside of the house jumping rope on the street. I made it to 100. Yeah, I'm just that awesome. Her grandparents soon came to pick her up and it was back in the house with me. I grabbed my computer and hopped on the internet. Ahhhhhhhhhh....Internet. I even got to skype with my parents and sister before stepping out to a Hanami festival.
As if I haven't mentioned this, Sakura are in bloom and eveyone everyone is going out to appreciate their brief and fleeting beauty. The weather was warm and the dango was good. I even got to eat some cotton candy. But when I pulled out my camera to take pictures, I discovered that my screen broke. Noooooooooooooooooo. My camera. It hasn't even been a week. I'm not sure what I did, but I'm dumb. So dumb. Dumb. Clumsy. Dumb. Dumb.
They actually show American lectures on TV. Harvard lectures. So that's what it would be like to take lectures at Harvard. I got to make some gyoza for dinner. Yummy!!!! And early off to bed. I start school tomorrow. Ugh.
My first full day with my host family. In order to not completely fail and be disrespectful I asked when would be a good time to wake up. 8 ish is breakfast, so I was up and about by 7:50 just in case. I feel like I have an internal alarm clock. Back at Stanford I usually wake up a few minutes before my alarm rings. It is possible that my body just gets used to it, but I'll go with the former, it makes me sound cooler. Like a robot. Breakfast was eggs business with toast as well as some fruit and yogurt.
I hadn't finished unpacking so I went back up to my room to arrange everything in my cozy little room. At some point, I hear peals of girlish laughter. Young girl laughter. As it turns out my host family had arranged to watch this girl for the day for her grandparents. I had not banked on entertaining a 7 year old girl, so when she showed up in my room I was pretty surprised. I also had no idea what to do with her. So I gave her my big bumble bee and asked her questions in broken Japanese as I continued to unpack. At some point I showed her pictures of home and Hawaii. One thing led to another and before I knew it I had introduced her to Photobooth. Thank you Apple for the invention of Photobooth. You may not have any games that would entertain a young girl, but pictures, your pictures and effects are more than anyone could dream of. Thank you. Basically we took a lot of pictures. A lot, a lot of pictures. I'm talking about over 100 pictures here.
At some point my host mother came into my room and informed us that we would be walking over to a nearby park. There we played tennis (on a court with no net (yeah pretty ghetto)) as well as badminton. My host mother brought jump rope and I totally schooled everyone in jump rope. Over 50 times in a row. They couldn't even touch this. The day was warm and in my old age we tire easily, so we walked back after spending an hour or so in the park.
Before we knew it, it was lunchtime!
I tried natto for the first time. My reaction: hmmmmmmm. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn't good, I mean I've smelt public bathrooms that are more aromatic than that fermented stringy goodness, but it was totally edible. I ate a little bit. Granted I ate a lot of rice following it, but I ate it without gagging, which probably disappointed my host family. I told them that I had never eaten it before, so they were probably waiting to see if I would lurch it back up. But I gave them so such satisfaction. I'm probably making that last bit up, but my host father was watching me expectantly.
Following dinner the girl, Ayaka (I accidentally typed Akaka at first), asked to go back to my room for more Photobooth. Thank you, Apple. But being young and lively with the attention span of a puppy or maybe it was because we had exhausted all of the effects, either way we ended up outside of the house jumping rope on the street. I made it to 100. Yeah, I'm just that awesome. Her grandparents soon came to pick her up and it was back in the house with me. I grabbed my computer and hopped on the internet. Ahhhhhhhhhh....Internet. I even got to skype with my parents and sister before stepping out to a Hanami festival.
As if I haven't mentioned this, Sakura are in bloom and eveyone everyone is going out to appreciate their brief and fleeting beauty. The weather was warm and the dango was good. I even got to eat some cotton candy. But when I pulled out my camera to take pictures, I discovered that my screen broke. Noooooooooooooooooo. My camera. It hasn't even been a week. I'm not sure what I did, but I'm dumb. So dumb. Dumb. Clumsy. Dumb. Dumb.
They actually show American lectures on TV. Harvard lectures. So that's what it would be like to take lectures at Harvard. I got to make some gyoza for dinner. Yummy!!!! And early off to bed. I start school tomorrow. Ugh.
Temples, Shrines, Host Family, oh my!...Day 2/3 (It's a long one)
Day 2
So after weaving our group haphazardly through the streets of Kyoto, Horvat, the director expected all of us to be able to magically navigate our way to the station and to school. I have the sense of direction of a chair. So I decided to leave with a group of other people. Due to the sheer enormity of our group, we got kind of a late start, and ended up getting to school 10 minutes late. Oh no! Japanese culture is very big on punctuality and I did feel bad that we were late, but the group was also late yesterday, when Horvat led us to school, so his apparent anger with us was a little hypocritical. It would have been more appropriate if the Japanese staff showed their anger, but they're Japanese and that's just not what we do. Our group was met with the ire of Horvat and we began our orientation.
One of the orientations, was the academic orientation. A group of Japanese students are actually going to be auditing the class, so they joined us for that particular segment. Afterwards, there was lunch to be had and many of the SCTI (American) students got into groups with the Japanese students to mingle and eat. Kenny and I started wandering, not sure where to go, until we tagged along with a group of students. There were 10 total including us and we headed off to a ramen shop. The ramen shop was a hole in the wall kind of place. A hole in the wall that was unable to accommodate 10 bodies that wanted to sit together. So the group headed back to the school cafeteria.
Not wanting to burden the group with an extra two people Kenny and I split split and wandered around. We walked through the school and found a temple around the back side of the block. There was a big entrance gate and a layout of buildings landscaped with cherry blossom trees. It was all very pretty.
I have the capacitiy to appreciate beauty for only so long when I haven't eaten lunch, so we were faced with one of man's primal questions: where to eat. We could go back to the ramen shop or the cafeteria. Wanting to try something new it was off to the ramen shop for us. We went at the right time, because two people happened to exit as we walked in and during our meal of ramen and fried rice set, there was a huge line of people behind us.
This is what real ramen looks like.
When we got back to campus it was time for the walking tour. We went to Nanzen-ji and Heian jingu. Nanzen-ji is this old Buddhist temple complete with zen rock gardens and other contemplative scenery and of course, lots of sakura. Sometimes being here seems kind of surreal and every once in a while I have a oh-my goodness I'm in Japan moment. I had another one of those over there. On our way out, Kenny and I stopped to watch those bamboo water filler upper and dropper things. His first comment when he saw that was, "Autistic people would love that. Did you know Matt, he was in my room freshman year, yeah, he would love that." It was a lot funnier in the moment, I suppose.
Then we walked over to Heian jingu, a shinto shrine. There, we participated in a blessing ceremony, where there was a lot of standing and sitting and bowing. Kind of like mass. And it ended with a sip of sake. All they needed to do was give us some senbei and it would have basically been communion, shinto style. Apparently Heian jingu has a gorgeous garden, but we were shepherded back (along the way there was the biggest tori ever, it was HUGE) to the train station to head back to the hotel.
Once at the hotel I put my stuff down and a bunch of us met up to go grab some dinner. We wandered around the shops and restaurants near the hotel and were going to settle on eating at a sushi restaurant, but like the ramen shop, there was no way eight of us were going to fit reasonably within an already packed sushi restaurant. Learning from that afternoon Kenny and I trudged on in search of food. Logistically, it's easier to do cooler things and find more amazing places if a smaller group strays from the pack. Walking further, we found a bread store and I had to go in. I love bread. It's one of my great loves behind ice cream and unagi. We tried to sit down at a table there, but the store clerk ushered us out saying that we had to order something off the menu in addition to buying something at the bakery. So Kenny and I once again had to brave the cold.
At orientation we were told that it is rude to walk while you eat, so Kenny and I wandered til we found a bench and sat down. After consuming my delicious pan it was more walking for us. We trudged on ahead and passed a river lined with cherry blossoms, but the cold was really getting to us, so we stepped into the nearest shop, which happened to be a store full of manga. We browsed around and tried to see how much we could actually read. Not much. But we stayed there until we warmed up, which was a while. Overcome with huger we stopped at a shop that had the promise of seared ahi in the posters for dinner. When we stepped inside we were not greeted with the typical irashiamase. Instead there was a vending machine looming in front us. We were supposed to order from the vending machine. I know, complete insanity. We keyed in our orders and received a ticket and sat at a table, where the waitress took our stubs and we were soon served with our first vending machine meal. It was delicious.
After that it was more wandering. We tried to find a bar, but there was no where that was under 800 yen for a beer and I'm pake. Too pricey for me. But in our (unfruitful) search for a bar we stumbled across a road lined with shops and cherry blossoms overhanging with a stream running through. Pretty. Pretty. Walking down that street we knew it wouldn't get any better so we started heading back. Yeah, we got a little lost. But thankfully Kenny brought a map and we managed to get back to the hotel after some aimless wandering. Then off to the ofuro and bed for me.
Day 3
This is the day we met our host families. Everyone was pretty nervous in the morning, and by pretty nervous I mean everyone was really nervous and trying to play it off. I managed to get to school on time, however another group was late so we were treated to another lecture. If we keep this up I'm pretty sure we'll grow immune to the effect of these lectures. Orientation kind of flew by because no one was really interested in what they were saying. I mean who would be interested in hearing about when meeting the people that they'd live with for the next two months. Not I said the cat. Following orientation, they had a gaggle of college girls take groups of us around the three campuses to show us the location of the computer clusters and library. But lunch was good. Another vending machine meal. I'm getting pretty pro at this whole food from the vending machine bit.
Following the tour we were herded into the room where we would meet our host families. It was pretty weird. There were two sides of the room with seats that faced each other. The students sat on one side and the host families sat on the other. It was the most unnecessary show down ever and just added to everyone's nerves. So I finally got to meet my host mother. She was a cute Japanese lady with a fancy blue hat. We sat and chatted for a while and ended up joining with another pair, David and his host mother. Together we walked over to the old imperial palace and walked around the grounds. The sakura were in bloom and it was a gorgeous day so there lots of people sitting under the sakura trees eating and taking pictures. So David and I did the tourist thing and did a walk around taking pictures.
From there my host mother were homeward bound and took the 1 hour train to their house. My host mother walked me from the train station to the house and I got to see more cherry blossoms and another shrine. My room is on the second floor of the house, which meant me lugging up my suitcase up a staircase that was barely wide enough to fit my suitcase. My room is nice and cozy. By cozy I mean a bit on the small size, but it's mine all mine so I'm happy. I unpacked and came down stairs and hung out with my host mother for a bit and took their little doggy Sheru for a walk. Then we took a trip to a real Japanese supermarket none of this Shirokiya Uwajimaya imitation. Everything is in miniature, except the price.
While my host mother made dinner (don't worry mom, I asked if she needed help) I watched Japanese TV. I knew the day would come when the screen would know longer have subtitles for my comprehension pleasure, so I watched catching words and phrases. They talk fast. Fast. Fast. I settled on a show that featured youtube videos and taped Japanese people's reaction. It was great. What added to the effect is that it was dubbed in Japanese, and I had already seen a few of them. Like the WOW kid freakout. Yeah, don't worry they edited out the part where he tried to stick the remote up his butt.
Dinner was some pasta business with clams. Yum. I was pretty tired afterwards, but my host father had yet to return home and I had yet to bestow my awesome omiyage on my host family. So I waited. He finally came home and I gave it to them just before my shower. They have never been to Hawaii. Point, Anya.
I had not been on the computer since morning and I was feeling physical pain from the withdrawals of internet usage so I asked if could hop on their computer for a bit. I had to wait for my host father to finish eating dinner, but afterwards my hunger for the web was sated and I could sleep easily. Well, not so easily, it was pretty chilly and I left my onesie at home. Minus point, Anya.
So after weaving our group haphazardly through the streets of Kyoto, Horvat, the director expected all of us to be able to magically navigate our way to the station and to school. I have the sense of direction of a chair. So I decided to leave with a group of other people. Due to the sheer enormity of our group, we got kind of a late start, and ended up getting to school 10 minutes late. Oh no! Japanese culture is very big on punctuality and I did feel bad that we were late, but the group was also late yesterday, when Horvat led us to school, so his apparent anger with us was a little hypocritical. It would have been more appropriate if the Japanese staff showed their anger, but they're Japanese and that's just not what we do. Our group was met with the ire of Horvat and we began our orientation.
One of the orientations, was the academic orientation. A group of Japanese students are actually going to be auditing the class, so they joined us for that particular segment. Afterwards, there was lunch to be had and many of the SCTI (American) students got into groups with the Japanese students to mingle and eat. Kenny and I started wandering, not sure where to go, until we tagged along with a group of students. There were 10 total including us and we headed off to a ramen shop. The ramen shop was a hole in the wall kind of place. A hole in the wall that was unable to accommodate 10 bodies that wanted to sit together. So the group headed back to the school cafeteria.
Not wanting to burden the group with an extra two people Kenny and I split split and wandered around. We walked through the school and found a temple around the back side of the block. There was a big entrance gate and a layout of buildings landscaped with cherry blossom trees. It was all very pretty.
I have the capacitiy to appreciate beauty for only so long when I haven't eaten lunch, so we were faced with one of man's primal questions: where to eat. We could go back to the ramen shop or the cafeteria. Wanting to try something new it was off to the ramen shop for us. We went at the right time, because two people happened to exit as we walked in and during our meal of ramen and fried rice set, there was a huge line of people behind us.
This is what real ramen looks like.
When we got back to campus it was time for the walking tour. We went to Nanzen-ji and Heian jingu. Nanzen-ji is this old Buddhist temple complete with zen rock gardens and other contemplative scenery and of course, lots of sakura. Sometimes being here seems kind of surreal and every once in a while I have a oh-my goodness I'm in Japan moment. I had another one of those over there. On our way out, Kenny and I stopped to watch those bamboo water filler upper and dropper things. His first comment when he saw that was, "Autistic people would love that. Did you know Matt, he was in my room freshman year, yeah, he would love that." It was a lot funnier in the moment, I suppose.
Then we walked over to Heian jingu, a shinto shrine. There, we participated in a blessing ceremony, where there was a lot of standing and sitting and bowing. Kind of like mass. And it ended with a sip of sake. All they needed to do was give us some senbei and it would have basically been communion, shinto style. Apparently Heian jingu has a gorgeous garden, but we were shepherded back (along the way there was the biggest tori ever, it was HUGE) to the train station to head back to the hotel.
Once at the hotel I put my stuff down and a bunch of us met up to go grab some dinner. We wandered around the shops and restaurants near the hotel and were going to settle on eating at a sushi restaurant, but like the ramen shop, there was no way eight of us were going to fit reasonably within an already packed sushi restaurant. Learning from that afternoon Kenny and I trudged on in search of food. Logistically, it's easier to do cooler things and find more amazing places if a smaller group strays from the pack. Walking further, we found a bread store and I had to go in. I love bread. It's one of my great loves behind ice cream and unagi. We tried to sit down at a table there, but the store clerk ushered us out saying that we had to order something off the menu in addition to buying something at the bakery. So Kenny and I once again had to brave the cold.
At orientation we were told that it is rude to walk while you eat, so Kenny and I wandered til we found a bench and sat down. After consuming my delicious pan it was more walking for us. We trudged on ahead and passed a river lined with cherry blossoms, but the cold was really getting to us, so we stepped into the nearest shop, which happened to be a store full of manga. We browsed around and tried to see how much we could actually read. Not much. But we stayed there until we warmed up, which was a while. Overcome with huger we stopped at a shop that had the promise of seared ahi in the posters for dinner. When we stepped inside we were not greeted with the typical irashiamase. Instead there was a vending machine looming in front us. We were supposed to order from the vending machine. I know, complete insanity. We keyed in our orders and received a ticket and sat at a table, where the waitress took our stubs and we were soon served with our first vending machine meal. It was delicious.
After that it was more wandering. We tried to find a bar, but there was no where that was under 800 yen for a beer and I'm pake. Too pricey for me. But in our (unfruitful) search for a bar we stumbled across a road lined with shops and cherry blossoms overhanging with a stream running through. Pretty. Pretty. Walking down that street we knew it wouldn't get any better so we started heading back. Yeah, we got a little lost. But thankfully Kenny brought a map and we managed to get back to the hotel after some aimless wandering. Then off to the ofuro and bed for me.
Day 3
This is the day we met our host families. Everyone was pretty nervous in the morning, and by pretty nervous I mean everyone was really nervous and trying to play it off. I managed to get to school on time, however another group was late so we were treated to another lecture. If we keep this up I'm pretty sure we'll grow immune to the effect of these lectures. Orientation kind of flew by because no one was really interested in what they were saying. I mean who would be interested in hearing about when meeting the people that they'd live with for the next two months. Not I said the cat. Following orientation, they had a gaggle of college girls take groups of us around the three campuses to show us the location of the computer clusters and library. But lunch was good. Another vending machine meal. I'm getting pretty pro at this whole food from the vending machine bit.
Following the tour we were herded into the room where we would meet our host families. It was pretty weird. There were two sides of the room with seats that faced each other. The students sat on one side and the host families sat on the other. It was the most unnecessary show down ever and just added to everyone's nerves. So I finally got to meet my host mother. She was a cute Japanese lady with a fancy blue hat. We sat and chatted for a while and ended up joining with another pair, David and his host mother. Together we walked over to the old imperial palace and walked around the grounds. The sakura were in bloom and it was a gorgeous day so there lots of people sitting under the sakura trees eating and taking pictures. So David and I did the tourist thing and did a walk around taking pictures.
From there my host mother were homeward bound and took the 1 hour train to their house. My host mother walked me from the train station to the house and I got to see more cherry blossoms and another shrine. My room is on the second floor of the house, which meant me lugging up my suitcase up a staircase that was barely wide enough to fit my suitcase. My room is nice and cozy. By cozy I mean a bit on the small size, but it's mine all mine so I'm happy. I unpacked and came down stairs and hung out with my host mother for a bit and took their little doggy Sheru for a walk. Then we took a trip to a real Japanese supermarket none of this Shirokiya Uwajimaya imitation. Everything is in miniature, except the price.
While my host mother made dinner (don't worry mom, I asked if she needed help) I watched Japanese TV. I knew the day would come when the screen would know longer have subtitles for my comprehension pleasure, so I watched catching words and phrases. They talk fast. Fast. Fast. I settled on a show that featured youtube videos and taped Japanese people's reaction. It was great. What added to the effect is that it was dubbed in Japanese, and I had already seen a few of them. Like the WOW kid freakout. Yeah, don't worry they edited out the part where he tried to stick the remote up his butt.
Dinner was some pasta business with clams. Yum. I was pretty tired afterwards, but my host father had yet to return home and I had yet to bestow my awesome omiyage on my host family. So I waited. He finally came home and I gave it to them just before my shower. They have never been to Hawaii. Point, Anya.
I had not been on the computer since morning and I was feeling physical pain from the withdrawals of internet usage so I asked if could hop on their computer for a bit. I had to wait for my host father to finish eating dinner, but afterwards my hunger for the web was sated and I could sleep easily. Well, not so easily, it was pretty chilly and I left my onesie at home. Minus point, Anya.
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