Two Weekends!

Lots of time has gone by! And my title image changed. I think it might be broken. Well, we’ll see if I can fix that. But lots of other things have happened!

Last friday, I went to Kyoto and wandered around in the shopping district. Nothing really super exciting happened. Fun looking in windows though! And I had some doughnuts, which were not real doughnuts because this is japan. They were sweetish bread rings. Didn’t really take any pictures. I wandered to a museum, but didn’t really go in. For some reason I was really out of it.

That sunday, though, was a ton of fun! I left early and went to Toji, which is a pretty standard temple by Kyoto standards, standards which, it should be noted, are incredibly high. I went into the temple and looked at the statues and architecture, and got to go into the pagoda, which are very rarely open in temples, and took a look at all the paintings on the inside, which were many centuries old and in very good condition! I wish I had been able to climb it, but they only let you see the first floor. It would have been really fun to go up in, too, because it’s the highest in Kyoto! Or maybe Japan, or something. It has some kind of height record. It’s five stories high, but I’m not sure if a pagoda-story is the same as a regular story. It could be bigger.

But I wasn’t there just for the temple! I was there for the market. It was about half antiquey kind of stalls, but there was also food and clothing and other miscellaneous ephemera. Some of it was a tad pricey. I was looking at a little brass lion-ey creature an inch or so tall, but pleasingly hefty. I asked the price and there was one zero whose presence surprised me. Same thing when I asked about an old map. I did buy a little bell, though, which jingles pleasingly amongst my change. Then I saw a cooler bell at another stand, and felt kind of like an idiot. But whatever. Still enjoying it. I also had a fabulous lunch! Fair food is always fun. Picture attached. Takoyaki, little octopus dumplings which are a local specialty, and roasted corn. And a soda. That afternoon I wandered around Nijo castle, which is not really a castle because the castle burned down, but there’s still a pretty cool palace. It featured the famous nightingale floors, which squeak when you walk on them. Sounded more like mice than nightingales, but whatever! Lots of very delicate metalwork around the beams and doorways.

Then during the week, on tuesday, I took a field trip to a grade school! I went around from class to class with some other exchange students and did a different activity in each room. The kids were super cute and practiced their english on me. I wowed them with my kendama skill. Those japanese tops are pretty tricky though. I’ll have to pick one up and master it.


This weekend followed a somewhat similar pattern in that friday was a little aimless. I wandered around Osaka with my speaking partner, in the shopping district. Picture: the Glico man, famous Osaka landmark. Hadn’t really seen Osaka at all. Kind of fun... but shopping isn’t that fun for me. You know, Y chromosome and what have you. Well, that and not a lot of money to spend on anything. There have been a couple of times when I’ve thought, man, I could blow some serious spending money here. Didn’t happen when I was in the shopping district, actually, but it did later when I went to pokemon center, which is a shop that only sells pokemon-related things. It also happens at temples sometimes - they usually sell some really lovely wooden Buddhist rosaries which are rather pricey. I might have to pick one up before I leave. Anyway, pokemon center was full of pokemon things. It was... really really fun to wander around in, actually.

The next day I was by myself, and went to Kyoto to see the plum blossoms. Kitano Tengu, the shrine I went to, is famous for them. Lots of different varieties in a ton of different pinks. I caught them at their peak, and had a really lovely time wandering around the grounds. Took a ton of pictures. I walked to the outskirts of kyoto after that and went to Ryoanji, which is famous for (and synonymous with, though there’s a lot else there) a zen rock garden, which is notable for being very very old and for the fact that it is impossible to see all the rocks in the garden at once. Supposedly, only by enlightenment can you see all fifteen at once. I was a little bit disappointed at first, because the garden is actually very small, but looking at it became... rather hypnotic. It seemed a little like one of those cross-your-eyes at it pictures. The temple was nestled in the hills, in a very cute japanese way. I’m a little bit sick of it being winter - all the photographs in the pamphlets you get at the temples show these beautiful summer trees and sakura, but now they’re much more drab. One of the reasons I went to the rock garden was because it’s a rock garden and winter shouldn’t matter. It did, though, somehow. Anyway, thanks for reading.

My room!

Here are some pictures of my room! And here is an explanation of what's going on in them, I guess. So. My house kind of has a double life. One half of it is new, western style, hard floors and carpets. This side has a kitchen, a living area (known to me as the warm area) and two bedrooms, one for my host brother and sister and the other for my parents. The other half is where my room is, and it's the old style part. Sliding doors (the paper on mine is pretty torn up, but I imagine that's just because the kids thought is was fun to poke their fingers though at some point), tatami, open ceilings, and the only bathroom: eastern style. If you know what that is, you just heard a dun dun DUN plot twist noise. No one ever really hangs out on the old side, because it's winter and it's very cold. Maybe they will when it gets hot. There's a very complicated/expensive looking Buddhist altar in the room diagonal to mine. I think it's to my host mothers' parents. Or my host father's, but somehow I get the feeling it's for hers, though I have no idea why. The entryway to the house is in the old part too. Anyway, here's my room. Pretty spare. It's only half of a somewhat bigger room, divided by some roll-up wall looking thing. The other side is storage.

Coming soon: my crazy kyoto weekend! Not that crazy. But fun! And with some good pictures.

One picture

This is all for today. Off to wander around Kyoto. A report on that and a room-opic of my room to be published monday. If you can't see the text on this one, zoom in. It's worth it.

Byoudou-in

First, sorry for the lack of updates recently. More updates forthcoming. I have been staving off writing about my host family because I haven't really taken any pictures of my house, I still don't want to until a moment when it won't seem really, really weird. I'll take some shots of my room tonight though, and post about that tomorrow, because my room is weird. The house is pretty darn weird, actually. Anyway. I've been thinking a lot as if I was writing a blog, composing bits in my head, and then I never bother to type them out or post them, but feel as if I have. Anyway, here's something for today.

On Saturday, I went with my host family to Byoudou-in, which is rather famous over here. The building is on the ten yen coin (dime) and the phoenixes on the roof are on the 10,000 yen bills. All the temples, especially the famous ones, charge a few dollars to get on the grounds then another few dollars to go into the building itself, though sometimes they don't allow you in at all. So I went in and did the loop around the building, but didn't do the inside tour.

Here's me with my rather adorable host brother and host sister, Saku and Arika respectively. She's doing some kind of really weird smile, in reality she looks much less... bizarre.

The museum was rather amazing - is had a lot of Japanese "national treasures" on display - many of the original fixtures of the temple - including the original phoenixes - are on display inside. There were a particularly amazing series of 52 Bodhisattvas, each on a cloud, each unique - each about a foot and a half tall. In the temple, they were on the walls behind Amida. I bought a deck of cards with a different card. My first souvenir!

It's also with mentioning that it was in a really pretty rural area, and that I'm getting really antsy about getting out into the woods sometime, just to walk around. I want to find some place I can just wander around somewhere pretty, (kyoto is super pretty, but very urban). Maybe somewhere I can get to on public transportation. I'll find it eventually.

A humorous interlude

Yesterday, I needed to go to a cash machine, but it was a weekend so I used one I hadn't used before. I accidentally hit the wrong button and got 30000 yen instead of 3000 (300$ instead of 30$). Which was more than was in my bank account. This morning I can't find my pants and ask my host mother about them, and she says she washed them. I told her my wallet was in them, and she said "oops." I fished my wallet and coins out of the machine. Luckily, the bills were recoverable. But if they were goners... man.

In Which We Have Friday Fun Time

Edit: Something went badly wrong with the layout of the post, but I don't really know how to fix it so here we are.

So, this isn't about my host family, here. That post is still in the pipes. On friday I have no class after 11AM, so I decided to take the train to Kyoto and took some sightseeing. I had downloaded a series of maps from the Japanese government's tourism website of walking tours of Kyoto. Friday I did the first one, which mainly took me along "the philosopher's path" in eastern Kyoto. We'll be mostly pictures today. Captions too, though! Can't forget the captions.

So, here are three pictures of getting there- the first one is of Hirakata Satation, the one nearest my school, and the other two were taken from the train. The ride takes about 30 minutes and costs about 400 yen each way, which is more or less 4 dollars. I had stowed my bag and headphones in a con locker at the station, so I wasn't really listening to "Final Day" by the Young Marble Giants, but nonetheless! They're our captions.









Three more: The first is of a signpost, captioned with a quote from the Wizard of Oz - Dorothy asks the scarecrow that after he shakes his head then immediately nods it. For some reason it was the first thing I thought of when I thought "signpost." The next two are of Ginkauji - "the silver pavilion." It's a zen temple, with a sand garden that has a sand replica of mt fuji. The pavilion itself is rather small, and was under construction, but the garden was nice. Pretty blustery day, though.












One last bunch: The philospoher's path is a famous walk along an old canal, and it ends right near a big temple, another zen one: Nanzenji, nan meaning South, zen meaning zen, and ji meaning temple. It had a very impressive gate! We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming eventually. Anyway, it was fun just wander around by myself, and since my schedule is the same every week and there were lots of walking tour routes all over the city, I'll probably do it again! Stay tuned.

Notes Sunday 1/31

So, I wrote these notes on my phone the afternoon before I met my host family. They cover my saturday trip to osaka castle and the next day until I met my host family. I'll explain each one.

Osaka awkward - true. My two roommates kind of trailed along, and somehow Ayako didn't really seem into it... "awkward" remains my overwhelming impression.

Marius big cigarettes - true. He was trying out different kinds to find one he liked in japan and he was smoking some huge ones. Really big.

waiting two hours, email - Ayako was waiting in the library for two hours before we found her. Plus it takes a long time for her to get here, she told me before. Bad miscommunication, I apologized profusely.

Express to Osaka, change trains - that's how we got there.

Walk up to castle 500 yen takoyaki - Ayako bought them for us. I should have let her but I didn't know how to stop her.

hot hot hot - they were really really hot.

omg that's my host family so nervous - I saw them through the window as I was writing these notes in the lounge.

ayako something wrong kind of face - like I said, she seemed to not be having a very good time. Because she had to wait so long, but also... I don't know. She seemed to be having fun at other times.

museum inside castle, panorama shots like kumamoto - Like Kumamoto castle, Osaka castle is a modern recreation filled with a museum. I took panorama shots from the top in Kumamoto, too.

green tea ice cream - delicious, but not as delicious as hagen daaz green tea ice cream, which I bought one evening walking back to the dorm and consumed completely in a ravenous fit while walking. That was the night after the kyoto tour.

doushio - after eating the ice cream and wandering around the castle, this word was uttered several times. Means, what should we do, or something like that. Awkward.

return trip, packing, cookies on walk - I bought cookies on the walk back from the train station, as we were headed back to the dorms. 84 yen tubes of tiny cookies. Pretty good.

I've forgotten my host parents' names, both of them - of my host parents in high school, who I just called mom and dad, and of my new ones, that I read on the form.

I haven't showered... since the hotel at the airport. true.

Shit thirteen minutes - on the clock till I met my host family.

skype, desk, futon thoughts - futon thoughts? I don't remember what was going on with that one. Here's a picture of my desk.

sleep conversation w marius - apparently he said something while he slept and I, also sleeping, replied.

omg I'm not sure what room I'm supposed to meet them and I've lost the form - there wasn't even a room on the form. I was just freaking out.

Raining today - pretty hard.

OK I know the boy's name isn't sokka like from avatar but that's all I can think of because I mentioned it the other day on here - true.

vending machine ramen - eaten in the rain during the afternoon. Very picturesque.

five minutes shit shit shit so nervous - I was really quite nervous.
children's packet from osaka castle - there was a rather adorable children's guide to osaka castle in addition to an english one and a regular japanese one. Lots of cartoon samurai. Kept a copy.

I don't even remember their last name, shiiiiiit - true.

this will go fine this will go fine shit shit - I was pretty nervous.

I think I should call him sokka on my blog that would be funny, her name sounds nothing like catara though and this blog has a pretty high saturation of avatar jokes already - true. Not super funny any way you count it, too.

my butt is pretty wet - from the rain ramen episode.

waited till the last minute, but totoro - I waited till the minute I was assigned to head upstairs to the meeting area but they just funelled me into a room where they were playing my neighbor totoro and other students were also waiting.

cat bus - a little bit longer? Maybe saw a different family - maybe. Still not sure actually. Wrote this in the waiting room, tehy told me it was going to be a few more minutes

kind of a sad movie actually - her hospitalized mother and all.

two old photos - ? Not sure what I was talking about here.

last one in the room - probably the last, last student to meet their host family. There were no students scheduled later than I on the schedule.
waiting like this slightly unbearable - true.

credits roll, totoro - yep.

Stay tuned for my host family tomorrow.

In the Meantime

Sorry for the lack of updates - moving in with my host family, who don't have internet, has messed up my blog-updating rhythm. But fear not, we're all still on board here. No one is overboard, is what I'm saying. But we've slipped pretty far into the past. Stay tuned over the next three days as we compensate and shift further towards the present.

Tomorrow: Osaka Castle, leaving the dorms
Thursday (for me, thursday, Japan is in the future): My host family, so far
Friday: Start of classes

And then it will be the weekend, and more interesting this will have happened. While you wait, here's something I thought was interesting, (if it's true,) about how the army corps of engineers hid an airplane factory by creating a fake town on top of it during world war II. Via Reddit.

Also, are you on skype? If so, I'm henrylatkinson.