Day 62 - Tuesday, June 1
Today. Today. Today, what did I do today? Class. Yes, class. E40 then Japanese. As I mentioned before, I am presenting on the curry restaurant for my presentation and as I hadn't taken any presentation worthy photos of the place I decided to dine there for lunch instead of the shokudo.
It's always super crowded there, so Bridget, Kenny, David, and I walked over to the shop around two and snagged a few stools at the counter and enjoyed some of the most satisfying curry on Imadegawa. Yum. Meanwhile, in the restaurant, I was awkwardly taking photos of the food and shop owner like a tourist. Not that my non-Asian face didn't already give me away. Gosh, I love that restaurant. And the shop owner is super chill. He's also a part of the experience. Getting served curry by the shop owner/chef/waiter listening to good music (I don't think that I've mentioned this before, but he listens to the same kind of music as my dad. I think I've only been in there once where there was Japanese music playing) and eating with friends. Awesome.
As a part of our cultural observation portion for my religion class, the students had the option of attending a Noh performance. For those of you who don't know, Noh is a traditional Japanese drama where a set of plays are performed in order to take the audience through a series of emotions and eventually resolving them with the final play. Our performance was a set of four plays and while I was kind of excited about watching them, I was kind of nervous as well.
When we first got there.
Mostly nervous because I was quite sure that I would find them painfully boring. I was right. The plays are looooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg and very sloooooooooooooooow. We received translations of the plays that are literally less than five pages in length, but with the acting and the dancing and the slow practiced movements, it took about an hour. I'd like to say I was a trooper and stuck it out for the whole thing, but I left partway through the fourth play.
After the torches were lit.
My reasons for leaving were twofold: firstly, I was bored and my elemu was in pain from sitting on hard bench for the past three plus hours, second, I wanted to beat the mass exodus of people from the temple and get home at a reasonable hour. Mission accomplished.
Night show!
I am grateful that I got the opportunity to go and be exposed to such an artsy side of the culture. I am also grateful that I did not foot the bill and know that my attention span is not wide enough to accommodate Noh in its spectrum. Perhaps the most important thing that I did yesterday was decide to go to Koya-san with a few guys from the program.
We leave Friday and stay overnight. Hooray! Hooray, for overpriced lodgings and monk food!
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