Gion and Nara

So, many, many things have happened since the last time I was able to post pictures. I say this before all of my entries I guess. Maybe I should do less so I have less to tell…or maybe I should slap myself for even joking about wasting this opportunity.

So, to begin, Thursday was the start of the Gion Matsuri. Now I had been told that for the Matsuri I needed several things: a Jinbei (one of the traditional costumes of men), Geta (those gigantic wooden sandals that you sometimes see in movies and Anime) and a date. All three were hard to come by. The Jinbei was the easiest. I found a store that sold them for $10. The Geta were a little more difficult. The kind I wanted were the traditional kind, but I found a pair of modern ones for $10, so I bought them. But I was not happy with them. Luckly, I asked the woman at the shoe department of AL Plaza, the local department store, and she was able to give me a pair of fantastic Geta, and a 5 minute long (and totally incomprehensible) history of the Geta. I smiled and nodded.

The most difficult part was the date thing. I have already written on this a little, so I will be brief. Basicly, I wanted to thank Yoko for taking me to Osaka, and I also wanted to ask her if she would take me to Nara. In the process of contemplating gifts, I decided she might also be a fun person to go to the festival with. Thus I assembled this multi-purpose giftpack. I have already told you about the confusion that ensued, so I will skip it and move on.

This is our classroom by the way.

And this is a guy who was in front of the Ryukoku University cafeteria. I have no idea why he is dressed like a demon.

So on Wednesday we all went on a field trip. First, we stopped by a place in Kusatsu that used to be a roadside hotel for visiting Daimyo. Fairly interesting. It was far smaller than I expected, and I was a little disappointed that the only thing we had access to was the quarters themselves. I am impressed by the elegant rooms of important people, but what I really want to see is the servants’ quarters and the other things that allow it to function on a daily basis. I discovered a very cool thing as well, I appear to be the exact height of an Edo period samurai!

And this is a fancy Edo period toilet.

After visiting this rest stop, we went to visit the preserved homes of some wealthy peddlers in Omi. These peddlers had very nice houses and very impressive gardens. Impressive to see that people could do such a good bussniess when virtually all goods are moved by humans and boats (no wheeled vehicles, and horses were not common). This is a cistern.

And these are Geta, in case you have never seen them. This house had a very impressive collection, which the curator was happy to show me.

Probably the neatest thing about the town of Omi was the fact that huge canals had been built for Koi, and the Koi could wander from house to house. I read somewhere once that Koi can live to be 70 years old. I wonder what the fish in Omi have seen.

And this is what the inside of a traditional Japanese house looks like. Notice the lack of furniture.

And that was the field trip. I had a good conversation with Professor Chang on the way back to Seta. Anyway, back to the Matsuri story. Well on Thursday after class Mary, Kari and I went to visit two of our tutors’ English class. We stayed until class started and tried to give their classmates a little practice. Then we rushed home in order to prepare for the Matsuri, and so we could leave at 4:30. We left at 6. I would have been pulling my hair out in frustration (there are few things that drive me crazy more than waiting for people to get ready to go out somewhere) if I hadn’t been peacefully dozing in the middle of the tatami mat floor. When we left I put on my Geta, and in no time I had adapted to them. They look very difficult to walk in, but once you get it down it is very comfortable. I was able to walk at close to my normal speed, which meant that (once again) I was way in the front. Everybody else in this program (except Kari, Mary, and Eric) is like a slug when it comes to walking places. Anyway, I decided it would probably be a good idea if I walked with my date, so I fell back. I got the feeling that she didn’t really want to walk with me though. She slowed down, and I decided to give her a little space, so I went off with other people for a bit. Here is me in front of a rice field with my Jinbei and Geta, possibly the most Japanese I will ever look.

Well the train ride was hard. Geta are very slippery, and you have to be careful not to step on anyone else’s toes, because if you do you might actually break their bones. The train ride was fun, but I had very little success in talking to my “date”, and I really got the feeling that she was a little uncomfortable, although it could just have been my imagination I suppose. Anyway, we got to our destination to be greeted by this scene.

So we broke into groups and started to walk. This is the only festival like thing we saw. I was actually really, really disappointed. Other people saw festival games and street vendors, but I saw the same shops I saw last week, and got to walk at a painfully slow pace as my “date” talked to somebody else.

So, I was starving. And when Yoko and Cindy decided to go into a regular store to look at clothes, I said to myself “ah, screw it” took this parting shot of them (Yoko on the left, Cindy on the right) and went off to a restaurant with a different group where I ate a lot of delicious squid. I am not disappointed by the way the date turned out. Utter failures make much better stories. I really need to learn more about Japanese dating though if I ever plan on moving here. I have a strong suspicion that I may have accidentially pressured her a little too much when I asked her. I also should have reasearched wether the tutors are allowed to date the exchange students. Oh well. She cheered up after it was clear I had given up, which I was glad to see, and later I even convinced her to take me to Nara the next day (which is what I really wanted in the first place).

The festival itself was much more disappointing to me. I had been expecting something kind of like what I saw in Kamakura. But it was the total opposite. Almost no one was drinking, 70% of the people there seemed to be young women who wanted to show off their Yukatas, the police had made two lanes for foot traffic and if you stopped to take pictures they would urge you along. I know there has to be something fun to do, but on Thursday night I could not find it. Thus, the most fun thing that I did on Thursday was walking around wearing the largest, loudest and most dangerous shoes on the block. I love my Geta. I even learned to run and ride a bicycle in them. I am the man in Getas.

So, on Friday I, indeed, went to Nara. The party consisted on Me, Mary, Eric (the core group of any successful trip), Yoko, Yumiko, Ryan, Brendan and Finella. A good group, but Mary, Eric and I could have traveled twice as fast if we had been alone. Anyway, we got to Nara, and found it to be very hot. Hotter than anywhere we have been. I was doing OK because I was wearing light clothing, a hat and had hydrated well. But some of us looked quite uncomfortable. Oh, and none of this is related to this picture, which is possibly the most unflattering photo of Nara station ever taken.

Well, Nara is known for two things. Buddhism and deer. Nara was once the capital of the then Buddhist Japanese Empire. And the deer? Well maybe they couldn’t have pidegins because they would have crapped all over the amazing buildings the Buddhists built. I also find the deer just a touch cuter.

We saw a lot of deer before in Mi-something-shima, and thus we did not think we wanted to see anymore deer. But the Nara deer were much cuter, smarter, better behaved and did not smell as bad. Despite my expectations, I was impressed by the Nara deer.

I had no idea that Todai-ji was so amazing. This is the first gate.

Handsome bucks.

The Second gate of Todai-ji.

Todai-ji itself. This photo was taken from a distance of maybe 120 meters with no zoom.

I have seen few structures that dominate their surroundings as much as Todai-ji.

It is amazing, due to an optical illusion, as you walk towards the building, if you look up, it appears that the building is growing to fill the entire universe.

And when you walk in side you realize you are looking at a Buddha that makes the one in Kamakura look like a teenager. A giant Buddha on a colossal lotus. It is dimly lit inside, and these pictures were very hard to get. This is the palm.

This is a smaller statue to the left of the Great Buddha.

And this is the Buddha itself. Think of the work it must have taken!

This is a statue on the left of the building that I thought was simply marvelously done.

So, one of the pillars of the temple has a small hole cut in it. If you can crawl through the whole it is good luck. The hole was actually almost too small for me, but I got through somehow. It is a really amazing experience to look up and think that the entire temple is resting on your chest.

Look how big these pillars are! All wood, and centuries old!

This is the whole. Look inside. The builders used an entire tree as the center of the pillar!

And outside of Todai-ji is one of the creepiest statues I have ever seen.

So, the review of Todai-ji is as follows. In you are in the area, not going would be a mistake. It is the second most awe inspireing religious structure I have ever seen, after St. Peter’s in Vatican City. I never expected it would be so amazing. I’m really glad I went.

So back to the subject of deer. The deer in Nara are intresting for another reason. They use crosswalks, generally look both ways, and mostly cross when the crosswalk sign turns green. They are very Japanese deer.

And this was at a cool pagoda we went to. No one ever told me what the name was.

But here it is again.

And again.

And here is the temple where there is that one gold coated Buddha. It seems like the building is arranged to reflect the setting sun off the gold, because I was there near sunset, and the sun was getting closer and closer to reflecting off the Buddha.

More deer.

And some more deer.

I really like this picture. See if you can discover why.

So these are Nara Pickles. They smelled kind of strange, and Yoko told me that she doesn’t like them. When I looked at the price, I decided I could forgo this one experience.

Alright, I have to run, I'm 10 minutes late for meeting to go to Kyoto again. By the way, the bikes we have suck.

Zeze

So yesterday Mary, Kari, Brian, Ryan and I went to Zeze. Have you ever heard of Zeze? My guess is you haven't. It is a factory town on the edge of Lake Biwa. So there is not much to report. Lake Biwa was pretty dirty, but Mary wanted some of the water as a souvineer so she and I went to a hardware store to buy a bottle. The hardware store had Venus Flytraps! I was inspired, and I bought a chilli pepper plant to give to the girl I planned to ask to the festival.

Which brings us to the really intresting part of the day. I was so proud of myself. Two years ago I would have been to embarassed to invite a girl to the festival, but yesterday I did so with no problem...kind of. Calmly I walked up to Yoko and asked her if she wanted to go with me. She said she was busy, and I said I understood and asked if we could do something on Friday. She agreed. All was well...

Until at 1:00 AM Kari knocked on my door and told me that Yoko had said she did not have a date to the festival yet. "Huh." I replied, quite sleepy still. Clearly there had been some sort of miscommunication, probably due to the fact that we speak diffrent languages. Crap. Thus followed a rapid deflation of self-confidence. I would have to ask her out a second time. How embarassing.

Still, I did so this morning. After a very awkward explination, she replied in the affirmative. I guess you really have to be blunt with these sort of things. I also realized something else: no one has ever taught me about how to ask someone on a date in Japan. This is something I should learn for future refrence.

I'm out of time, see you.

Missing things and "Fires"

So yesterday I took my exam. Terrible. The multiple choice was easy, but the essay was very dificult for me. I thought about the book "Kokoro" so much after I read it that I was unable to write a suscinct essay about it. Oh well.

But some other intresting stuff happened that day, in the morning my umbrella was stolen from the umbrella holder outside of the computer room. Saddened, I walked to the campus store to buy a new one. But halfway there I saw my umbrella in an umbrella rack outside a diffrent classroom. So I stole it back. The on the way home I found a dropped Mini-disc player in the middle of the quad. It gave me an excuse to ask people directions for the lost and found, and now I know several words for lost items.

The rest of the day I slept and read all of Fires on the Plain, a book about a Japanese soldier during the Phillipne campaign of World War 2. I thought this book was excelent. Very well written. While the subject matter is horribly depressing, the main character is so disconnected with reality that he rarely becomes depressed. I hated Kokoro because the main character allowed his sadness to consume him, but in "Fires on the Plain" the main character experiences much more trauma, but has the strength of will to go mad and keep on living rather than sink into depression and kill himself. Also, the reoccuring theological imagery of the book was fantasticly done! One thing I would say though, since most of what goes on is people starving to death, I would not read it on an empty stomach.

Hiroshima and Food

So, this was a pretty intense weekend. This post will in all likelihood be long, and full of many sidetracked opinions and very strange language since much of my view of the world was changed. Sorry in advance. But I did take some good pictures, so keep going.

Let’s begin with Friday. After class on Friday I accompanied Mary, Kari, Finella, and Katrine to Kyoto, where we revisited all the things that Eric, Mary and I already saw on Thursday. There is not much to tell about Friday, except for the fact that I bought a Junbei and some Geta for the Gion festival next Thursday. You can see a Junbei if you go back to the Kamakura pictures, it is what most of the guys are wearing. And Geta are wooden sandals. We also returned to the Higashihon-ji (I think I actually may have the name wrong), you know, the big scary and mysterious temple. It is not as mysterious when it is open. It is a working temple, and feels a great deal like a modern Christian church in the U.S. So I was a little let down. But I did take this picture.

Well, the next day we went to Hiroshima. We got up at 6 and started our train ride at 7. By taking the Shinkansen, we were able to reach Hiroshima in 2 hours. This picture is some of our group making use of the pay phones on the Shinkansen platform to call relatives (by the way family, I haven’t called because I used up my phone card calling about the “tumor”, which is now almost totally gone, and have not bought a new one. Plus, I put about an hour average worth of work into this every day, and as a result there is really nothing left to tell you).

I can’t really describe how I feel about Hiroshima. It’s complicated. On the one hand, it was amazing. To see the bent I beams of the dome, to know that 60 years ago tens of thousands died where you were standing, to see cement walls embedded with shards of glass, and knowing that someone must have been standing in front of a window. Of course, it is amazing. But at the same time, I kept thinking “that’s all?!” My entire life I have learned about the great and evil Atomic Bomb. Out of fear and respect for its destructive power, I have spent hours immersed in studies of its effects. But going to Hiroshima, the thing that struck me was the fact that nothing of its destruction remains. The city is not a wasteland. Trees grow bellow the point where it exploded. The people of Hiroshima are not grossly deformed from the effects of the radiation. Moreover, the blast was weak. It destroyed so many homes because houses were made of, as Nathan described them, “yard sticks and tissue paper”. It couldn’t even knock down the dome, pictured below. The dome was made of brick, and looks as though, given a sledgehammer and enough time, I could knock it down. The bomb was powerful, but its destructive power seemed truly pathetic compared with the reconstructive power of humanity and life itself. All the same I did not find this encouraging. I guess it is like if, as a child, you go to church and are always told that Satan is the greatest evil in the world, but you realize later in life that Satan is pathetic, and that in fact the ultimate evil is not really as powerful as you expected. But it is real. It is so disorienting that you can’t find it comforting. Not yet at least. Here is the dome.

However, you must know that the above was what took place on an intellectual level. On an emotional level I was crushed, plain and simple. From the moment I saw the dome, I began to have a lump in my throat. When I saw the wall that had been torn to shreds by glass, I began to cry silently. When I reread the story of Sachiko, whose story I knew from “The Thousand Paper Cranes” I began to cry more. When I looked out at the rainy day, towards where the bomb detonated and thought how the use of the atomic bomb probably did contribute to the ending of the war, I sat down on my haunches in despair. I basically cried the entire time, in one form or another. But look at how life has overcome near annihilation.

The verdict on the Peace Park and museum: if you have never thought about nuclear war seriously, you must go. But if you are like me, I don’t know. While monuments and captions on displays can teach, stories of people have more power for me. I cry more for Sachiko, who tries her best to live again and fails, than for Hiroshima the city, which has succeeded in regaining life. Like I said, I can’t express it.

Alright, so after that we took a street car to the ferry terminal that goes to Matsushima Island. It began to rain very hard on the boat, and I had no umbrella. I basically got soaked, but I didn’t care. This is a good picture, I thought.

This, also, is good.

I loved the orange of the Tori Gate, which sits in the ocean at high tide.

The scenery on the island was beautiful. Very peaceful, and packed with deer…

Which were almost as amusing as the soaked tourists.

Deer.

Beautiful.

Also beautiful.

Less beautiful with me in the picture, but I have to prove to you that I went and did not just scan postcards.

So after returning to Seta, me and six of the other guys went out for one of those grill your own meat places. And that was it for the day.

So the next day I asked Yoko, a new tutor who I think I probably like the most out of all the tutors due to the fact that she is so chill and smiles so often, if she could take me and a small group to Osaka. She agreed, and Eric, Yoko, Adam and I went. We basically went to all the places that we have already been to in Osaka, but I enjoyed it more this time. I find that if I am in good company it enhances my travel experience greatly. I could be seeing some fairly mundane things, but if I am in good company, I generally have a great time.

The feature of today was the “Tabehodai”, which means all-you-can-eat. We went to an all you can eat sushi place for lunch. The final tally: Adam 43 plates, Eric 28 plates, Trenton 25 plates, Yoko 22 plates. This is my stack.

Observe our consumptive power!

I will not want to eat for a while.

Another Trip to Kyoto

So today, while exciting, was a lot like yesterday. As a result, my descriptions will be shorter so you don’t have to suffer. Mary, Eric and I went to Kyoto again today. Kari had to do laundry and didn’t have enough money. First we went to Honnoji temple. Completely by accident, I would like to add. We were actually looking for Maruzen Bookstore, but the directions I got from the old man at the information window took us to Honnoji Temple instead. We accidentally snuck in the back, and as a result avoided paying the entrance fee. The temple was not that amazing, though I bet it has some sort of incredible history. Here is Mary at Honnoji.

So after leaving Honnoji, we stumbled into Kawaramachi, Kyoto’s huge shopping street. I have seen 6 shopping streets on this trip, that this was the coolest, because rather than just having modern fashions and make-up stores, there were also antique stores, traditional toy stores, cheap dining, movie theaters etc. I will probably be spending more time there in the future since I haven’t explored it all yet. We asked for directions and discovered that the old man was totally wrong. With new, working directions, we began to walk. Just then the lightning, hail and torrential rain began. Literally, one minute it was nice and the next it was like the worst part of a heavy rain storm. We bought an umbrella, or rather, Mary bought the 4^th umbrella that she has purchased this trip.

We found Maruzen, and I spent an hour looking for a good textbook for next year. Once my purchase was complete we set off for the Gion district. By this time the rain had totally stopped and the street was dry. Very weird weather. We crossed the bridge and walked through Gion. I would have taken pictures of Gion, but just then the rain started again. We kind of wanted to sit somewhere and eat something, so when we saw a Starbucks, we went in. The highlight of the Starbucks trip was when, in an effort to find out why country music was playing in a shop in the center of on of Japan’s most traditional neighborhoods, I asked the guy behind the counter the name of the song. He researched this for 10 minutes, and finally wrote down the name. I really need to learn how to say “forget it” in Japanese.

Then we went to this shrine.

It was neat.

Then we went here.

This is a nice picture.

So, ready to call it a day, we made the hour long hike back to Kyoto Station, where we discovered a place that has cheap and very good sushi. It is located in the subway station, far away from the JR line entrance on the east side.

Upon reaching Seta, we decided to visit the shrine that is right next to the tracks. In fact, this shrine is so close to the train station that it is basically attached. We saw tons of people using it as a short cut on their way home. Neat little shrine. There was a large wreath in the center and it appeared that we were supposed to walk through it in a certain way. Not knowing what it was for, we started to leave, but an old woman called us back and showed us how to do it. She was very nice, but I was a little nervous that, while she showed us what to do, she did not do it herself. She probably laughed all the way home.

So yeah. Good day again. As a side note, I like traveling with Mary and Eric. They are game for anything and have a good sense of humor. Though we missed Kari and the conversations that she enables.