Suetsumuhana

Today, May 5, I went with two of my fellow seminar house residents to a place called Ola Bar Tacos. It was, as the name implies, a sort of combination bar/Mexican restaurant. We dined on some incredibly delicious tacos, quesadillas, and nachos. They were cheesy and spicy and greasy in a wonderful way that you simply do not find in Japan, generally.

We explained to the lovely bartender/waitresses that we were celebrating Cinco de Mayo (well, that was what we kept telling ourselves, it was really just an excuse to go all the way to Osaka for tacos), and they had no idea what we meant. Being not from Mexico, we only had a vague idea ourselves, but eventually the cook spoke up from the back - he at least knew what we meant. So, basically, not only have I explained the role of kitsune in Shinto to Japanese university students, but I've also explained Cinco de Mayo to the owners of a Mexican restaurant!

I find these things more funny than exasperating though. The Japanese seem to be very intense about being 'authentic' - they'll go through great troubles to get the look right, the taste right - this place had Mexican mariachi music and some more modern Spanish rap, it had all the Mexican beers, tequilas, the hot sauces were all imported, they didn't skimp on the cheese... - but after all of that they don't tend to know the history of things, even if it's something that really interests them. I think they like the experience more than the reasons, you know? If it's an authentic experience, it's good, even if you don't know why.

I keep telling myself to catch up on my entries ever since spring break, but the task is a little daunting. Instead I've decided to just tell you what I did Wednesday and today, and maybe make entries for that month and a half I missed later if I feel up to it.

( Explanation of Golden Week )

( May 4 - Nara )

( Buddha's Measurements )
( Pictures" )

Edit: These entries are actually from about two weeks ago, but I've been too busy with midterms to post them until now. I also went to an onsen (hot springs) on Sunday the 5 but even though it was nice I'm not really up to describing that. Besides, there are no pictures because one doesn't take pictures in places where everyone is naked. Anyhow, to see what day these things really happened on, just look at the date of the entry. I'll be going to Tokyo tomorrow (Friday) night and staying until Wednesday, then traveling around the Kansai area on day trips for the rest of my spring break. So, in a little over a week, there should be some nice pictures.

On Saturday I went to Kobe with my Japan and Globalization. More recently it has been known for being damaged by an intense earthquake, but it is also known for being a very international city. In the mid nineteenth century after Japan opened up their country to foreigners again (they'd not let anyone but the Chinese and Dutch into their country for a few centuries because they didn't want outside influences affecting them, and those two groups could only be in certain parts of Nagasaki) Kobe was one of the first ports open to accomodate all the new traffic from foreigners that would be coming. As a result a lot of the foreign diplomats built their houses here, and there is also a Chinatown (called Nankinmachi, or 'Nanking-town', I guess).
We hiked up a big hill in an area called Kitano (which I think means 'north') to see the old diplomats' houses, but the way was blocked off for some reason. There was a great view of the city, though. After going back down the hill we went to Chinatown and got some time to eat. I ate delicious ramen (not the instant kind, the good kind), which is actually a Chinese dish that the Japanese imported. After Chinatown, we went down to the harbor to see the water and the earthquake memorial stuff. They left a portion of the harbor as it was after the earthquake to remind people of the horrible damage the city suffered. Besides that one patch, though, the city was so well rebuilt, that I would have never been able to tell that so much of it was destroyed about only a decade ago.

( Pictures )

My birthday fell on a Thursday this year (Thanks to everyone who sent me cards!), so I wasn't able to do very much. On Friday night, though, we (myself, Sachi, Terhi, and Kim) went to the local izakaya. Our other friends from Seminar House IV, Harrison and Vanessa joined us a little later too, so it was a lot of fun. If you're wondering what an izakaya is...well the closes translation might be 'tavern'. It's a distinctly Japanese style of place to drink, not really a bar because most of the places to sit are tables (at Zeniya, the one we went to, there were both tables with benches and ones where you sat on the floor) and the food menu is just as large as the drink menu. They're really fun places. Along with sake (which is actually called nihonshuu in Japan, because to them, 'sake' just means any kind of alcohol) and some other things the others were drinking (I've forgotten what because I just had sake) we had french fries (potato furai), edamame (salted soybeans that you pop out of their casing to eat) and a sort of soup with tofu that I forgot the name of but was very delicious.

Vanessa and Harrison went home, but the rest of went to do karaoke at a place near Makino station. It was a huge place, kind of a karaoke place merged with a game center (mostly those UFO catcher machines, which I won't explain but will just show a picture of), merged with a bowling alley. We also did purikua ('Print Club'), little booths where everyone piles in, gets their picture taken in front of four crazy backgrounds they choose, then draws and writes words on the pictures on a computer screen before they are printed out for you.

( Pictures and video )

It was a rainy Sunday, and Terhi had offered to make us a Finnish treat called 'Laskiaspulla'. We all went to Sachi's little apartment to do so, because visitors aren't allowed in the Seminar House Kitchen so Sachi and Becky (who is doing a homestay with a Japanese family) wouldn't have been able to cook with us. I got terribly lost on the way, wandering around wavering residential streets in the rain, searching for Seminar House I, where we were supposed to meet Becky. But since I had left a little early when I finally found the others it wasn't really that late, and we continued on to Sachi's house. We had a fun time cooking, or rather, we had a fun time watching Terhi cook. The rest of us mostly spread jam on the laskiaspulla (which turned out to be a very buttery type biscuit). She explained to us that the tradition is to eat them on the Tuesday just before Lent (even though a lot do it on Sunday because they can gather together more easily) and then they all go sledding down hills in the snow. Alas, we had no snow, so we only ate the Laskiaspulla. Anyhow, here are the pictures~.
( Oishii )

On Saturday we went to a flea market at the Kitano Tenmangu shrine on Kyoto. Every month on the 25 there is a market there (and one on the 21 at a different temple). We'd heard you can find very cheap used kimono and a variety of other things there. We road the train/subway to Kyoto, then got on a bus to go towards the market. The bus was very crowded, because everyone wanted to go to the market...I thought it might be even worse because the market fell on a Saturday this time, but Sachi said she had a friend who lives in Osaka who rode buses that crowded everyday. We were lucky to get on the stop we did, too, because after our stop the bus driver wasn't picking up anymore people.

The market was very crowded too, but quite a few of the people there were foreigners, and we even saw quite a few people from school and even from our dorm. They all seemed to be buying cheap kimono too. The weather was very warm and the plum trees were beginning to blossom, so there were a lot of people taking pictures of the flowers with the cameras and phones...so naturally we did too! It was just something about being there and among them, that made you want to pictures of the flowers too.

Terhi found a really beautiful doll for about 3000 yen. It was a great conversation starter beause after that middle aged and older women were constantly coming up to us, oohing at it, and the very oldest ones were bold enough to start a conversation with her about it.

( Pictures~ )
After the market Terhi left to go learn about Japanese dying, and the rest of us ate lunch. I had oyakodon, which is interesting because the characters for 'oyako' mean 'parent' and 'child'. They call it that because it is chicken and egg served on rice (food on rice is donburi). We went to a music store after that and I spent twice as much on two CDs then I had at the whole market buying two kimono and an obi. CDs in Japan are very expensive.

I split off from the others then. Sachi went to shop more, and Meredith wanted to go home, and I was going to Uji. This is a place I've wanted to go for almost a year now, since I read The Tale of Genji ( a very famous, but verrry long Japanese book - I read the English translation). The last ten chapters of the book take place in Uji, a very picturesque city on a river. Back in the eleventh century when the book was written, it was a place the aristocracy went to get away from the bustle of Kyoto, and even though it's almost a suburb of Kyoto now it is still very pictureseque and beautiful. I didn't have time to see the Byodo-in temple or go to the tea shops (Uji is also famous for green tea), but I did get to spend an hour at the Tale of Genji museum before it closed. It was funny because I was the only foreigner and definitely the youngest person there. I suppose that most of the people who read and like The Tale of Genji are older Japanese women.

After I left the museum I walked back to the river to see the famous 'Uji bridge'. I took a lot of pictures of the river and then took the train back home. Oddly enough when I got off at the Kuzuha station to switch to the local train, I met Sachi coming back from her shopping. There are billions of Japanese people in this country, yet I happened to meet the only one I really know that well! ...it was a nice coincidence, and the country doesn't seem so big because of things like that.

( Uji pictures )

So today we went to Kyoto (I've been to Kyoto every weekend I've been here, I just realized - but it was the city I wanted to see most when I came to Japan, so I'm taking advantage of being a half hour train ride away from it) with my roommate's Japanese friend Yumi. Meredith had found something on the Internet about a place where you can dress like a geisha and get your picture taken in a professional photo studio. It was a little expensive, ten thousand yen (a little under 100 dollars) but considering the transformation you go through, and how expensive the costumes and wigs we got to wear were (hundreds, thousands of dollars), ten thousand yen was a pretty good price. For that we got to be dressed like maiko (apprentice geisha, who have the flashiest costumes and most elaborate hairdos) and have our picture taken. We got about twenty poses, and of that we picked three which they will send copies of to us in a few weeks. We got the proof sheet with all twenty though, which is surprisingly nice - when I got my senior pictures they didn't let you keep that. We also got to take as many pictures as we wanted in the waiting room, and I uploaded those to show you all.

After that we walked along a big shopping street (I think it is the one called Kawaramachi) and looked into the shops there. Meredith really wanted some of the pretty hairpieces (you can see them in the pictures below, they're the things with little strings of beads/pretty things hanging off them). They were really expensive, I think she must have spent 3-4000 yen apiece on two of them (about seventy dollars). We walked a little farther to a outdoor mall of sorts with more average priced things, and I saw not one but two KFCs. And later when we got back to Hirakata-shi I saw another just outside the bus station, so now I know where I go if I get homesick for...fried chicken.

After we got back to Kyoto Yumi took us to her apartment building, and we went to her friend Chika's apartment. Actually they call it 'manshon', which is from the English/French word mansion but doesn't have the same meaning at all - it was really just an apartment building full of tiny rooms like you would expect a college student to have. Chika made us takoyaki, which is a little piece of octopus (tako) put into some batter and cooked. The thing she used to make was a lot like a waffle or pancake iron except it was to make balls instead of flat things. I know this description doesn't make sense but you can see better in the pictures. It was delicious, and so was the cake we had gotten outside the bus station before we came. We had a nice time talking about what was popular in our countries (they were surprised to hear that Americans don't eat much seafood, do eat a lot of cheese, and don't go to hot springs). We also watched the opening cermonies of the Olympics, which were being replayed (they had started at 4:00 AM this (Saturday morning) Japan time. Did anyone else see them? Did anyone know what exactly the Italians were trying to say with all that modern dance and Cirque du Soleil type stuff? Because we certainly didn't...but we had fun going "Ehhhhh???" (because that's what you say here, not "Huh?") at the television nonetheless.

To wrap up, I'd like to outline all the various modes of transportation we used today. We rode our bikes from the Seminar House to Makino station, got on the train and rode to Hirakata station, met Yumi, got back on the train towards Kyoto. Then later on we rode the train back to Hirakata, got on a bus to Yumi's neighborhood while she rode a bike and got there a little later. Then to go home they walked us back to the same bus stop, we rode the bus to Hirakata station, then back onto the train to Makino station, where we got back on our bikes and rode back to the Seminar House. Pretty much everything but a car...which in America, is all anyone ever uses if they don't live in a big city. In fact, we haven't been in cars at all in Japan.

( Sorry for the rambling; here are the pictures )

So today we (my roommate Meredith, Terhi, and I) set out for Kyoto, to find the costume museum I'd found on the Internet. With the map I'd printed off, we managed to locate it after a bit of walking. The display was a 1/4 replica of Genji's house at Rokujo, complete with little dolls dressed in beautiful Heian period clothing (the Heian period was the time in Japan's history from about 800 to 1100, when the nobles at court had power. It was the one right before the samurai warriors gained control, which is the part of Japan's history most people know more about.) And they were set up in little scenes from The Tale of Genji. This is my favorite Japanese book, so of course I loved it and was taking pictures all over the place...though because I know most of you don't care as much as I do, I will only share a few of them, plus some others I made on the street.

The best part of the museum, though, was that you could dress up in the Heian period clothes and have your picture taken for free. Of course I took pictures of that as well. There were also a lot of nice postcards of the different costumes. I bought like twelve, but I don't think I'll be sending them to anyone - that's what normal postcards are for. I bought these for the pictures. I also got a little book that explains the clothes and lives of people in Heian times, mostly in Japanese but with some English on the bottom. So, I am a very happy Heian period nerd at the moment.

After we left the costume museum, we tried to find the shopping street we'd been to the first time we went to Kyoto. That didn't work out so well, due to a confusion about which stop we'd gotten off at. The funniest part was when we got on the subway at Gojo station after the costume museum, got off at the next stop, Shijo, thinking the shopping street was there, and walked for about fifteen minutes looking for it only to notice that everything was looking familiar...we'd walked all the way back to Gojo. By the time we'd finally figured out where the shopping street was (it was actually near Sanjo station), it was getting a little late. We wandered through a book and CD store, and my roommate purchased more Gackt merchandise than I've ever seen in one place. I saw two CDs I wanted, but they didn't take Visa. The others offered to pay for them for me because I had the money back at the dorms, but then I realized that, well the reason I left my extra money back at the dorms was so I didn't spend it on things like this.

( And now, the pictures )

Today was An Adventure. The first part, everything went pretty well. We left the Seminar House and walked down the bus stop. We realized after a few minutes that we were on the wrong side of the street, but luckily we had plenty of time to cross; the bus wasn't coming for another five minutes. We made it downtown, and after a bit of wandering back and forth around the station, we figured out where the bank would be. But before we saw a store with the best name ever - The Store - and decided to go in.



It turned out to be a pretty convenient store - a pharmacy section, a really large book section, a restaurant and some other things, and the prices weren't so bad. I finally found toothpaste, and also a manga (the cheaper ones were 500 yen, which is a lot nicer than the $10 I'm used to paying). The odd thing about The Store, though, is that despite having a kind of department store setup, you're supposed to pay for things in their own little spaces. I took my toothpaste and manga up to the book cashier, but she wasn't having that. She very politely told me to take the toothpaste to the other store, gesturing towards the pharmacy area, and took the money for my book. They wrapped the comic in some paper, like an extra book cover. I found that a little strange, but went with it...even stranger is that though my manga didn't get any bag, my toothpaste got two. They wrapped it up in a small paper bag, then put that bag in a larger plastic one that was luckily big enough to hold my manga as well.

After that we went to the bank to cash some travelers checks, and were directed to the second floor. We saw a sign for 'foreign exchange' and took a number there. It wasn't a very long wait considering how busy they were, and we were done in twenty minutes or so.

This is the point where things went strange. I had this paper printed out from Kansai Gaidai's website that said that all the buses leaving from bus depot 3 and 4 at Hirakata Station went to Kansai Gaidai's main gate. This was wrong as the we got on ended up at Hirakata Koen, a train station at an amusement park on the other side of town. Rather than try to figure out the way back on the bus, we just got on the train. We needed to go about three stops to get to the station nearest the school, the one we left for Kyoto from the other day. Ironically I think we passed the bus station we'd originally left from on one of the stops. But either way, we got off at Gotenyama station, the one we'd been too before, and found our way back to the school. We had french fries at Makudo (McDonalds) to celebrate the fact that we didn't end up in Okinawa somehow.

Tomorrow is the first day of school, so I may not be updating as much now. If interesting things happen, or I have pictures to share, I will, but if I don't update everywhere please do not worry, IM or email me if you want to talk. I think I'll ride the train to Kyoto again this weekend and see Uji and perhaps Gion now that I have a little money. If I do that, that should be a good update with nice pictures.

I was going to update yesterday (Sunday) because all I did was go to the supermarket, but then remembered some things that people might find interesting.

Anyhow yesterday we officially signed into our dorms, meaning we got the key to the gate (it locks at 11:00 so if you arrive later you have to let yourself in) and another to our kitchen box. (Inside the kitchen box were two plates, large and small, too bowls, large and small, a glass, a teacup, and our own personal tea kettle.) So naturally everyone was going to the supermarket to fill up said kitechen boxes. I ended up going twice, once on my own, and then again with Meredith because she'd been looking for a bigger supermarket.

See, the places we'd been going before were 'konbini'. They're very small, maybe just a little larger than a convenience store in America, with a little more food, but still things come in single servings. The one we went to yesterday was a true suupa (supermarket). It was at least 2/3 as big as a supermarket you'd find in the US, kind ofoverpriced but the selection was much better. I got things like fruit and a big box of tea that I couldn't get at the other places. I also bought some pudding cups. They came three in a pack. One was strawberry, but the other was 'maccha pudding', which is actually a kind of green tea. I'm going to eat some breakfast after I finish posting this, so I'll update later on how it tastes.

The supermarket was laid out pretty much like the ones in America, with the produce near the entrance and meat anf fish in the back. One interesting thing about it is the music they were playing. I think they must have gotten a whole CD of fifties American hits. They were playing 'Earth Angel' and 'Rock Around the Clock', things like that, the whole time both times I was in the store. It was kind of hard not to laugh.

The only major differences from American stores were types of food offered (obviously there was a lot more tea, lots of rice, a very small dairy section, etc), sizes of portions (smaller), no buggies (though you could put your basket on a rolling cart if you wanted - only saw one or two people doing that), and that when you check out, they just put your bags in your basket and you take it all to one of several little tables in the front where you bag you own groceries. Also, no one was buying nearly as much as they might in America, so they probably go grocery shopping a lot more.

And this was what my bag looked like:


Today I'm not only going to brave the bus system, but also go to the bank and get some of my travelers checks cashed. Will tell you how that goes later~