Monday, January 16, 2006 - いい日旅立ち、西へ / On to Kyoto
Woke up... from my last night in my lovely futon. Ahh, I really don't want to leave this area. I like my host family, I've just figured out how to get around... ここが好き。 :(
Melissa making an amusing face at Tokyo Station before we caught our bullet train XD
Kathryn!
Paul, hahah
Sup Tokyo Station!
Bullet train wickets (hahah, that word is so funny)
On the bullet train!
We were spirited straight from the Kyoto Station platform to our bus waiting outside. There was another bus next to ours filled with jeering junior high students, who were no doubt calling out "Gaijin, gaijin da!" and the like, and we were giggling right back. Because someone told me to, I blew a kiss at them, and I thought they wouldn't see it, but they did and were pretty amused by it. Hahaha. Anyway, from there we went straight to Sanju-sangendo Temple. We saw the huge Kannon goddess statue and the rows of 1,000 other figures of her... yay. Cool, and famous etc, but not fascinating. Next up was Nijo Castle, which was quite awesome. It was so fun to put on the little slippers and pad around on the wooden floors (the squeaky "nightingale" floors!) of the old building. Even if no photography and NO SKETCHING was allowed. Whee, good times.
Pretty pond at Nijo Castle
More hand purification things
Me looking stupid
There's Linsey on the opposite side
The designated path we had to follow around the grounds. STICK TO THE PATH!
Sup koi!! Apparently just one of these fish is worth like $20,000 because it lives here and is old or something. ahhh crazy!
The third stop of the day was Kinkakuji Temple, which I recognized immediately because Elsa has been there and I saw her pictures. So we saw the huge golden pavilion and that was where I saw the guy who looks like someone I know, hahah.
Haaaay Kinkakuji!!
The obligatory picture of me by Kinkakuji
The guy in the gray hat is the one I thought looked like my friend. You really can't see it here, though...
Cool steps
Finally after that we went to our hotel, the Heian no Mori. Dinner was at 7 and a buffet. After that I chilled in the room for a while, having declined to go out with Mary Anne and Erin because I didn't really want to go to bookstores and arcades. When they got back, we girls sat up talking for hours and it was fun.
The front entryway of our hotel room. The green slippers are for wearing around the hotel, apparently!
My and Melissa's room. They moved the table over and laid out the futons over where the TV is.
Hahah, Milin and Karl all pimped out in their yukata robes!
Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - Kyoto, AKA Temple City
And the neverending parade of temples continues. After breakfast, we set out for Nanzenji, which had pretty zen gardens and wooden walkways in slippers. Also an aqueduct, which we explored thoroughly and it was quite fun. We then walked to a tea ceremony place, where girls in kimono served us matcha tea (bitter green tea) and bean-flavored sweets. I had a bit of the sweet (bleh) but didn't even try the tea, no way, that stuff smelled gross and I knew I would not like it.
Zen gardennssss
Aqueduct!! :D
Me in the aqueduct supports XD
The top of the aqueduct
Mary Anne pretending like she's going to cross it (she so didn't!)
General shots of Kyoto streets
Nastiness. Utter nastiness. (My tea ceremony tea & sweet)
Everyone with their tea
The girl in the kimono did the ceremony and served us our tea
Then we took the bus to Kiyomizudera Temple, wandered around there for a bit before Melissa and I ventured down to find lunch. The best we found were these delicious crepes with things inside them. I got a blueberry cheesecake one and it was amazing. <3!
Kiyomizudera! So pretty!
Then we went to Zenkyoan Kenninji Temple to do zen meditation. Oh God, that was torturous and absolutely freezing (since we had to take our coats and shoes off and the screens were completely open, letting the frigid air blow right in). I know you're supposed to get so into your meditation that you forget that your feet are slowly getting frostbitten, but I just couldn't. Let me meditate when I am comfortable please! I never want to do that again! Ahhh.
My feet, about to freeze like they've never frozen before
Scott, Alex, Ishikawa-san, Buddhist monk dude who led our meditation
Ahahahahaa Mary Anne
HEEEEE :3 We were all oh so amused by this sign! (Across the street from the temple place)
Came back to hotel, napped, ate dinner, chilled in room until I went to the public bath with Sarah K and Kathryn for the first time. Oh man--amazing!! I am so glad I tried it. I was oh so wary, but being naked really was not that bad, and I had a great conversation with Sarah and Kathryn to boot. So it was a weird and special experience, but definitely worth it. Almost made the Kyoto trip itself worth it, actually. I feel a lot better about a lot of things. Probably won't last, but oh well! Still happy :)
I actually took this the next morning, but I'm putting it here. This sign was on the pathway to the public bath in our hotel, and oh, so amusing :D
Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - On to Nara / Hiroshima
Woke up a bit late and so I had to scarf down breakfast before hauling all my stuff down from the room and put it on the bus. Once everyone was settled, we were off to Nara! First we went to Horyu-ji Temple, which was pretty unremarkable and really, I don't see why we needed to stop at it. There was an interesting museum, which was a welcome break from the temple monotony, but otherwise? No.
NO SKETCHING!! You can't even draw a picture.
But, ah, then we were off to Kasugataisha! The deer park! Amazing!! I loved it as much as I knew I would. The pushy deer didn't even bother me. We fed them deer crackers and it was awesome. Mary Anne, Erin, Melissa and I had lunch at this udon place and for the first time in a long time, all four of us were completely satisfied with our food and were able to find a restaurant relatively fast (oh, so much drama/tension resulted from the daily lunch quest!). I had Scott take a picture to commemorate this truly momentous and rare occasion.
Melissa wanted me to take pictures of her giving her report on Kasugataisha, so I did, and also happened to capture Tad looking like an utter idiot. Oh, hilarity!
Deeeeeeer!
Amusing deer safety sign. Look at the angry deer at the bottom!
Main gate to the temple
Deer-themed hand purification area!
These are stone lanterns lining the sides of the main path. They get lit up at night and I really wanted to see it but we didn't get to stay that long D:
Hellooo! :D
Melissa feeding the deer. Those are the deer cracker things you can buy and give to them
All right, now it's my and Mary Anne's turn to be attacked by greedy deer!
Deer says, SUP :O
Even Erin got in on the action
Joining back up with the rest of the group... Aubrey and David are in the process of attracting the whole horde to them
@_@
All of us happy with our meals! A MIRACLE!! (mmm, check out my curry :3333 Currrryyyy~~ :D)
After lunch we (me, Erin, and Mary Anne--Melissa had gone ahead) were walking on the main path towards Todaiji to meet back up with the rest of our group when this group of three junior-high girls rushed up and AMBUSHED us with "May I speak to you in English?" It was the cutest thing ever. They had to do it for a homework assignment, because their teacher and a few guy students were standing off to the side. They told us their names and where they were from and then asked us the same questions and wrote down the answers. By that point Ishikawa-san (the woman from IES who came along with us on the Kyoto-Nara-Hiroshima part of the trip. She was great!) had come back looking for us, since we were supposed to have met the group by then, but we couldn't really have just left the girls, and she understood.
The interview seemed to be over, so we were able to continue on to Todaiji, where we played with the deer some more and beheld a true Daibutsu (big Buddha). That thing was HUGE!! I'm not sorry I missed Kamakura's Daibutsu, because this is truly the biggest Buddha in Japan. Simply amazing!
It has horns on top! :D Well, okay, fish tails, but you know...
Big Buddha, big Buddha, big Buddha... :D (to the tune of "Big Booty" hahahah)
Around the back there's a hole in a pillar said to be the size of the Buddha statue's nostril, and if you squeeze through you are said to be a very clever person (because, according to legend, a guy working on the statue accidentally sealed himself inside, and only escaped by crawling out through the Buddha's nostril). We all made it through, except for Melissa who didn't try and Erin whose boobs were (hee) too big to fit through XD It was great fun cheering each other on, including some random Japanese tourists who were doing it too. Nara was quite fun indeed :D
Yess! I did it :D
I love how Scott immediately flipped those peace signs! Or as Milin called it, "throwin up the deuce deuce" ahahahaaaa
The temple apparently donates to cerebral palsy or something. I just love all the cute pictures!
From there the bus took us to Shin-Osaka Station, where we caught the shinkansen to Hiroshima. From the station we walked to our hotel, the New Tachibana. And you've already heard my joke about that one... (cough) So wrong but just so hilarious. Erin, Melissa, Mary Anne and I were all in the same room.
Dinner was Japanese-style, in a tatami room and with like 10 different dishes. Most of it I didn't like (ah, of course) but there was some delicious meat patty stuff that I loved. I was pretty much able to just eat what looked good and leave the rest, and what I ate got me pretty full anyway.
That night we ventured out to the area around Hiroshima Station and found this cool 6-story building with an Internet cafe on the sixth floor, so we hit that up and spent an hour online. When we got back, Mary Anne and I went down to the public bath with Sarah and Kathryn. Linsey also joined us there. This public bath is smaller than the last one, but it was still oh so relaxing and lovely. :)
Cool statues by Hiroshima Station
Thursday, January 19, 2006 - My Birthday!! / Hiroshima + Miyajima
Yes indeed, it was my 20th birthday today. And I was sort of confused the whole day long because no one else on the trip besides my friends seemed to know! So I thought it had just been forgotten since nothing happened all day. Until that night, when out of the blue there was Kirin beer and Coke and everyone toasted me and my "coming of age" in Japan! Ishikawa-san even gave me a little name stamp with "Sara" in katakana on it. So nice!
But back to the day itself. We took the streetcar to Hiroshima Peace Park and saw the Genbaku (A-bomb) Dome and the everlasting flame and all that stuff. Then we went to the Peace Memorial Museum, which... I'll cut a rant short and just say that I was very mad at the complete biased agenda going on there. I also didn't appreciate the slight anti-American undercurrent either... whatever. Mary Anne and I had fun mocking the guestbook entries, though. hahahaaah, there were some good ones!
So if you expect me to be feeling all reverant and respectful here, well, I'm not. The whole thing just pissed me off. grrr
A-bomb Dome
Shrine outside it
Everyone listening to the person who was giving their presentation on it
One of the little mini-monuments inside the Peace Park
Lake thing a bunch of stuff is put on top of
This was like the first time I had seen a flagpole flying the Japanese flag (both in Japan and overall, a flagpole flying something besides the American flag)
The special monuments all lined up... blah
Before joining the rest of the group at the streetcar stop, Erin, Melissa, Mary Anne and I found some international phone booths and called our families. My parents were so surprised to hear from me, but I think they were glad I called even though we only talked for about 5 minutes before my coins ran out. After we finished our calls we walked back to the streetcar station and rode that back to Hiroshima Station where we had lunch. Melissa and I had McDonald's!! Yay, Makudo. It's better here! I don't know why.
Theeere it is :D Mmmm so good :3
After lunch, we rode to Miyajimaguchi Station, from which we caught the ferry to Miyajima (Island). The ferry ride was quite fun and a nice change. Once we got to Miyajima, we made our way straight for Itsukushima Shrine, which was so cool. It has the famous "floating torii" gate and then the whole rest of the shrine is built on the water too. There was a lot of construction going on and the tide was out (exposing the ugly muddy sandbed) so it wasn't as pretty as it could have been but it was still really cool. After we finished walking through the shrine, we walked back through the main boulevard lined with shops and did some shopping. I picked up a box of the momiji sweets (the maple-leaf-shaped sweets the area is known for. Deer, maple leaves, and monkeys--that's Miyajima) for my host family. Of course we petted all the tame deer hanging around (yay for places with tame deer!) but unfortunately, because we only had two hours to explore Miyajima (not enough time!), we didn't get to ride the gondolas up unto the mountains and see the monkeys. Oh well--next time, I guess, because I definitely want to come back to Miyajima, it was awesome.
It was really cold waiting for the ferry so Paul zipped his jacket and stuff up all the way and then realized it made him look like a robber. "I will mug you," he said, haha!
Sup Miyajima! Sup deeeer!
Amusing-looking tanuki (raccoon dog)
Hay famous torii gate!
Inside of Itsukushima Shrine, one of the coolest shrines ever. It's BUILT ON THE WATER!
Probably looks cooler when there's actual water under it, though...
Deeeer! Apparently if the tide comes in and they don't get out in time, they drown!!!
Miko!! Mikomikomiko!! (Shrine priestess/maiden) The first one I had seen! :D
Mikooooo :D
HAHAHAH!!
Deer bothering the deer cracker stall dude!
The deer can go anywhere they want--EXCEPT the bathrooms. Hence, a gate to keep them out. hahaha!!
When we got back to the hotel, we had dinner and that's when Scott and Ishikawa-san busted out with the beer and such and totally surprised me. So crazy...
After dinner, the four of us went back to the internet cafe place and then after that went to bed. And that was my birthday! Miyajima made it, really. That place rocked :D
Friday, January 20, 2006 - Himeji / Sayonara Party
Got up, ate breakfast. Took the shinkansen to Himeji Station (maybe an hour away), and walked from there to Himeji Castle, one of the three most famous castles in Japan, which was way awesome. (I also liked that the 'hime' in its name is indeed the character for princess, which is in the Japanese version of my name [Sarah meaning princess]. So, it's the princess castle :3). We walked up all those steep sets of stairs to reach the very top of the castle, where we could see out all over and it was really cool. I also liked the creaky wooden floors and stairs, I love old buildings. This castle's been around since medieval times, too, so it's a wonder they still let people tramp all over it! After exploring the castle we had another crazy lunch adventure and Mary Anne went a little insane, but eventually we found this cafe place that was acceptable to all of us.
At Hiroshima Station, there is a HIGH SCHOOL inside the station!! Look to the left--it says "Clark Memorial International High School"!!
Himejiiiii
Erin looking all silly and like a "ninja"
Kiiiitty!
NO SCRIBBLES!
View from the veeeery top!
Looking out onto the city of Himeji
The mini-shrine on the top floor
Cabbages!! (Fred and Kathryn actually broke off some leaves and ATE THEM! Freaks!!)
Sup white heron :3 I thought it was cool cause the castle is also called the White Heron cause of its whitewashed walls
Then I clapped my hands so it would go flying off and I could get this shot. Mary Anne, who had been trying to take a picture of it on the ugly bags, wasn't too happy!
There were also black swans!!
Swanny swan swans :D They came over all hoping we food but we so didn't. :/ Sorry swans!
Apparently, having one of the three most famous castles in Japan just isn't enough. Himeji also needs to have bizarre and random sculptures along its main street!
AS WELL AS HILARIOUS ADS AHAHAHAHAHAHA SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THIS
Baaaahahahaha.
From Himeji we got back on the shinkansen and took it all the way back to Tokyo: another nice, long, relaxing ride, ahhh. I could stay on the shinkansen all day. We arrived in Shinagawa and checked into our hotel, the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, an extremely nice hotel (patronized, of course, by many foreigners). We had about half an hour to decompress before making our way to the banquet room of another tower for the Sayonara Party with our host families. I was so happy to see my host mom and Nanase again (my host dad had to work), I didn't even mind that I couldn't eat half the food. I played with Nanase a lot, swinging her around and giving her piggyback rides like I do to my cousins. There were some speeches by Scott and other IES people over the course of the night and then maybe around 10 or so the party started winding down and I had to say goodbye to my host mom and Nanase, which was really really sad. Both Kanako-san (my host mom) and I started crying--I am so fond of them and it kills me that I may not see them for a long time. :(
Picture I took with Na-chan on my lap and just holding the camera out
Everyone listening to some boring speech, blah blah
Na-chaaaaaan :3
WAHHHH, I MISS THEMMMMMM!
End of Week 2!!
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