Comfort Zones

Monday the 16th was our last day in Japan, and we spent it traveling: buses, trains, planes, (and lots of walking).  At Narita Airport, we had lunch (cuurrrry) and made one last Lawson's run.  I am going to miss that conbini :\ Me and nicole made last-minute origami at a Japanese culture booth before sprinting like mad to our terminal (when I say last minute, I really mean last minute haha).  Before long, we were taking off, leaving behind Japan, and returning to our comfort zones :)  Mr. Mitchell was right;  venturing outside our comfort zones was kind of terrifying and well, uncomfortable.  Mustering up the courage to speak Japanese to strangers, staying by myself in a temple, and eating loads of crap when I didn't even know what it was (it was tongue): All of these were scary, but at the same time rewarding beyond words.  Being in a country like Japan and getting immersed in so much unfamiliar culture was really an unforgettable experience. I met such an amazing family, and when I go back (study abroad please?) I definitely plan on seeing them again. Until then, またね日本！:)

Modeling the best melon soda money can buy

Goodbye faithful Lawson :'(

See you later Japan!

Ocean of Stars

Sunday the 15th was our last full day of Japan.  It felt like we had just gotten there, and it was already time to leave.  I showered, packed, left a goodbye note on the pillow, and took one last look at my room before sliding the paper door closed. Before leaving, we scrambled to take a picture in front of the sea.  Fukui is truly beautiful, I miss it so much! For breakfast I had delicious egg, sausage, and rice onigiri. I ate in the car since we were running late (story of my life) and after saying goodbye to akari and okaasan, we got in Kitagawa sensei's car and made our way to the station. After restlessly standing around, we took a group picture and got ready to take the escalator to our platform.  Shizuka bought a pass so she could come up to the platform to say goodbye which almost set off my tear-producing glands, but I managed to hold it together.  Before long we were inside the train, waving like crazy and watching fukui disappear. 

The super long building with all the Buddhas

There were so many turtles there holy crap

Once we arrived in Kyoto, we grabbed lunch at Mossburger (chicken curry burger and melon soda yumyum) before setting out for the first place of the day 当時 (Touji Temple) which consisted of a beautiful garden with a giant pond, and large temples filled with different buddha statues and generals. On one side of the pond was a giant pagoda, the largest in Japan. Then we went to 三十三間堂 (Sanjuusangendou) which is a long temple hall, housing 1001 buddha statues: 500 life sized ones standing on each side of a gigantic seated buddha.  It was mind-blowing to see rows upon rows of these statues, each with a billion arms (not really) holding a billion things (not really). Sadly we were not allowed to take pictures inside, or else I would've spammed this post with pictures of that place. We returned to downtown Kyoto and met up with Courtney's exchange student from two years ago, Kaori, for dinner.  She took us to a delicious noodle place where I got chicken curry udon (see the pattern?) Sadly we didn't have enough time, and I had to scarf the whole scalding thing down. As soon as I finished, Natalie and I ran to the nearest elevator and literally sprinted out the mall, all the way back to the hotel.

At night we went on a hike up a mountain, through thousands of shinto gates.  It was the Fushimi Inari-taisha which is the main shrine honoring Inari, the Kami (God) of fertillity, industry, and argriculture. It's also closely associated with kitsune which are foxes, so there are usually stone foxes at the entrances of the shrine wearing red bibs.  Climbing the endless flight of steps was pretty surreal. Everything was dark except for the gates which were illuminated by the overhead lamps. We walked until the burn in my legs faded to a dull throb.  I can't really describe how I felt, but it was kind of a calm, satisfied feeling. Maybe that's what meditation feels like.  I reflected on everything that had happened and kind of just took it all in. Eventually we came to a clearing, and when we turned around the whole city of Kyoto was underneath us.  In the dark, it looked like a giant puddle of stars, or maybe I'm just romanticizing it. Regardless, it was a really fitting end to an unforgettable trip.

The view from halfway up the trail.  This picture doesn't do the real thing any justice

Elixir of Life

Ha, it's been about a month since we've gotten back from Japan, and I have yet to finish blogging. Okay, I'm gonna power through this. SO. Saturday, April 14th aka exactly a month ago.

Did not wake up on time. Again I felt pretty guilty, but then I ended up waiting for my host mom to get ready for half an hour after I was ready...which they apologized for, but made me feel a lot better.  Anyway, we set out for a little shopping, our first stop being a book/stationary shop. HOLYMOTHER it was jammed packed with adorable office supplies.  It kind of was a throwback to chinese book stores, but in Japan everything is cuter and neater (and more expensive). Anyway, there was practically a whole isle dedicated to COPIC MARKERS.  Aren't they beautiful?

So for the day they decided to take me to a Japanese-style amusement park. It wasn't roller coasters and gut wrenching rides (thank god).  All of the buildings were traditional, and there were good-looking guys strolling around, dressed in costume. Shizuka told me that these guys can be referred to as "ikemen" which according to jisho.org means "cool guy; energetic man; hunk". Very applicable in my opinion. Anyway, the first thing we did was go to a ninja show.  We sat in a dark room with a stage that jutted into the center. The stage was constructed to resemble a mountain setting, and the red ninjas and black ninjas were facing off and doing all kinds of intense athletic shit.  I'm not sure if I followed it exactly, but I think the story line had to do with this boss ninja who ordered his followers to steal the elixir of life, but at the end there's a bunch of betrayal where the boss kills one of the followers for being wounded, and then the other guy kills the boss. But in the end there's a soliloquy and somehow everyone comes back to life and breaks out into the thriller dance. Weird. After the show the ikemen ninja all lined up outside, thanked everyone for coming in a loud voice, and bowed.  Then giggling girls lined up in front of each one in hopes of talking to them and getting a picture taken. This guy started talking to me in Japanese before realizing I couldn't understand anything.  When they told him I was visiting from America he got all excited and kept saying "I want to America, I want to America." Haha I was dying, but managed to tell him (in Japanese) that he should totally come to America. He told us to "ENJOY!" and did this weird shaky shoulders thing (which we all mimicked later).  He reminded me of a really happy dog.

After the show, we went to a ninja house which was really trippy.  They had whole rooms build on a slant so it was impossible to stand up straight.  The gravitational force created a bunch of optical illusions like tennis balls rolling up an incline or ropes suspended at 25 degree angles. It was totally weird. There were also other ones like the ground painted to look like a chasm and steps leading to a wall painted with more steps.  Lol there's my host mother pretending to fall into the hole.  We also played games like blow-darts and traditional arrow shooting (which I completely sucked at by the way).  Then they went to go do the zip-line which I completely wimped out on.  I may've gotten over my fear of heights a long time ago, but flying across a river is a little more than I can handle. We bummed around, ate food, took an excessive amount of pictures, and then set off for her great aunt's house.  We got some delicious snacks (MOOCCHIII) and then abducted her great aunt to go back home with us. For dinner we made some intense takoyaki! AKA octopus balls.  The cooking process is actually pretty awesome.  First we sprinkled crunchy stuff in each hole of the pan.  Then we prepared the batter with eggs, mix, and lettuce. After pouring that in we added bits of ginger, and I had the honor of picking up little chopped up bits of octopus and putting one in each puddle.  Then once it started cooking, we took long metal toothpicks and did a wrist turn for each, which caused it to dislodge and allowed us to rotate the balls so they could cook all the way around.  Not sure if that description was follow-able but I tried my best haha.  Also, the ratio of her ball-turning-rate to mine was about 10:1. Dinner was delicious (especially the seafood salad) and afterwards we just chilled and watched my host mother, grandmother, and great aunt gut a whole colony of fish.  There were literally giant buckets pilled with fish everywhere, and fish blood all over the three different gutting stations.  They told me to stay in the other room haha. Once everything was cleaned up and it was safe to enter the kitchen, we ate some adorable desserts from a local bakery. The last night comprised mostly of sitting around the warm table and talking.  When it got late, I grudgingly set off for my warm futon for the last time :'(

I miss you guys !!! Shizuka!! Akari!! Okaasan!! Obachan!!

Crunch Crunch Cartilage

Presentation buddies :)

Continuing with the series I call "A Belated Account of Japan".... Friday was a full day of school! I'm ashamed to say that I rolled out of bed late (can't I atleast have the decency to get up on time in a foreign country?) Anyway, we had to give science presentations to the Koshi kids, so as soon as we got there, CC and I practiced our presentations for a little.  We had to present about alternative energy and green architecture.... all in Japanese.  Ha, please, as if I knew what I was saying. Thank you internet resources. Anyway, we presented, and then had a speed talk session, where we got grouped with two Japanese students each and had to talk to them about school, differences between America and Japan, and hobbies. My conversations involved toilets and ear-piercing.  Also some of the guys asked me if I had a boyfriend. I've noticed that that particular subject is a popular ice breaker with the Japanese kids.  After meeting at least ten of them and remembering zero of their names, we moved on to a home ec. class.  We learned how to wrap bento boxes, bottles, and watermelons. Our table was a little awkward since the kids we ended up with barely talked to us, but oh well. Finally it was lunch time, and my girl's mom made us cute little triangle bentos! There were carrots, sausages, onigiri, and these ridiculously delicious rolled eggs.  Yumyum, anyway, after lunch we listened to the Japanese kids present science to us, and had another mingling talk session.

Purikura works it's magic.

After that we got to go to a 書道 class! It was awesome, and the sensei was such a pro. I learned how to write my name in Japanese and then we all got to write our favorite kanji on a giant communal paper.  I picked "楽" which means fun/enjoy/happiness. After that, the ESL (English as second language) club took us around so we could see all the after school clubs.  We got to watch kendou which was crazy intense.  They shrieked and yelled while zipping across the floor unceasingly hitting each other with their kendou swords. We also got to watch basketball, badminton, volleyball, soccer, rugby, archery, and a band.  Did I mention that Shizuka is captain of the Juudou club? That's a form of Japanese wrestling.  According to her teacher, she can throw a 100 kilogram man over her shoulder...AKA more than 200 pounds, holy crap. Before dinner we met up with Akari (Shizuka's sister) and went with Nicole and Hikaru to take PURIKURA ! It's like photobooth on steroids.  So basically you walk into their arcade-esque room with pumping music filled with booths and plastered with giant pretty people.  It's kind of overwhelming haha.  Anyway, we picked a booth (apparently they're all different??) and took pictures.  Afterwards you can decorate your pictures with a cool touch screen pen, but there's a time-limit.  Holy crap it completely stressed me out! I'm the slowest decorator there ever was.  Aren't these crazy? We're freaking anime characters.

Concentration of a master.

Deciding...

We met up with okaasan for dinner at a yakitori place! I had the best peach juice known to man, and stuffed my face with deliciousness on a stick. I tried everything that came, including fried cartilage, which actually turned out to be pretty good.  It was funny when she tried to explain to me what I was eating by pointing to her joints.  I was like wtf I'm eating elbow ?? But technology came to the rescue and cleared that all up.  Once we went home I tucked myself away under that wonderful, warm table and ate a gigantic apple.  Seriously, the fruit in Japan is amazing!  Everything is beautiful (and really expensive).  Anyway, okaasan came and asked me to draw her.  She had recently written a little piece in a book, and she needed a picture to go along with her biography.  It was totally out of the blue, but I gladly sketched her a picture, and they thanked me by buying me two black copic multiliners (YEEESSSS). We all sat around the table (stuffed our faces with snacks) and talked until it got really late.  Then I stumbled off to my warm futon and passed out. Sound familiar?

Yakitoriiiii ♥

My host mom was awesome lmao
This was her pose for the bio-pic

Onward to Fukui !

I'm currently sitting on my bed in a Buddhist temple (!!!) as I type this. This morning Mitchell had to go with the two kids to Nagoya to search for the passport and rail passes. Since he wasnt here to take us to the golden pavilion and the other super cool place we were supposed to go, we just bummed around in the emperor's garden nbd. Actually it was pretty boring even though the place was huge and gorgeous. We spent a lot of time walking on gravel, that's probably why.

We quickly got lunch in the basement of one of the giant department stores, and then grabbed some delicious Baskin Robins (love potion ;) ) before hopping on a train bound for FUKUI. Actually before that we had to change at Kyoto station. Luck would have it that none of the goddamn bathrooms on our platform had western style toilets. I had to go really bad though so I took a gamble and overcame my fear. Not really though, those squatters still terrify me. Anyway, on the train ride there I was really nervous. After my hosting experience last month I was scared that my host family was going to hate me. The city landscape gave away to rural Japan. We passed villages and large tracts of flooded farm land. Soon there was even snow on the ground, and not long after that we arrived at the station ! We were greeted by the Japanese teachers and some students who had tagged along. Among them was Arachi! She bounced over to me and hugged me, which really surprised me. Then she promptly walked away and we never talked again lol.

At the entrance of the emperor's garden....with four random guys :)

NICOLE !

We walked to their highschool which was giant and had about 4 stories. It was arranged in a giant square with a large garden in the center. Anyway, we turned into the walkway leading to the school and saw a bunch of students waving to us through the windows. We walked in, found our host students, and went to a large room where we sat down at tables with our student and their parent(s). Their teachers gave speeches that went completely over my head, and Mitchell gave one too (which I also couldn't understand). Then we had to stand up one by one and (awkwardly) wave to everyone. My girls mom couldn't make it, so we waited for Kitagawa sensei to drive us. While we were waiting, another teacher came over to me and said "Yui". I was confused at first because I thought he was calling me that, but then I realized he was saying the name of my first exchange student from over 2 years ago! Before I knew what was going on, he had Yui on his cell and handed it to me. It was really nice to hear her voice! But our conversation was really confusing and short since I had to go, and she spent most of the time apologizing because she couldn't come visit, while I spent most of the time assuring her that it was okay.

I loved how the irrigated fields reflect the mountains in the background

In the car to her house, the TV was switched on to the news (yes they have a TV in their console), and there was a story about the car accident that had happened in Kyoto earlier that day.  We were only a few blocks away from the accident when it happened, there were at least five helicopters flying over the city, and sirens were going off everywhere. According to the news, a man driving a minivan ran a red light and hit around 16 pedestrians, most of whom were tourists. Eight were dead, including the driver. It was crazy to think something like that could happen so close by. I feel like everyone has this weird conviction that bad things can't happen to them, you know? Sometimes we take it for granted how fortunate we really are.

Koshi in all its glory :)

Anyway, we arrived at Shizuka's house...which turned out to be a Buddhist temple! It was gigantic and very traditional with sliding paper doors, bamboo floors, and long corridors. I loved it. For dinner her mom made gyuudon.  It's beef and onion over rice.  I learned that when you have a dish where you put some sort of meat or topping on top of rice it's called ~don.  In this case, beef (gyuu) over rice = gyuudon. I dunno, but I found that pretty interesting so I included it haha. There was also a cold broccoli sesame side dish and some miso soup, both of which were also delicious. I was told to say "itadakimasu" before eating and "gochisousamadeshita" after eating. Obaachan (her grandma) kept trying to talk to me, but wouldn't look at my face, so I'd get really confused as to who she was talking to. Shizuka explained that it used to be less socially acceptable to look people in the eye when talking to them, and her grandma never grew out of it. Aha. Anyway, after dinner I spent a good amount of time sitting under their HEATED TABLE. Oh my god I was obsessed with that thing.  It's a low table surrounded by cushions that you sit on, you pull aside the blankets and stick your legs underneath the table into a giant pit with a glowing heater in the middle. It was heavenly.  I would spend all day sitting there if I could. We talked a lot, exchanged presents, and she helped me a bit with my science presentation (that we had to give infront of the Koshi High School students the next morning).  I finally trudged to bed at around 1 am and passed out on my warm futon.

Heated table AKA my lover ♥♥♥♥

Buddhist Temple! 

Shooting the Moon

Oh crap I really need to blog about the past four days but I haven't had the chance to. We've been super busy! I hope i don't leave anything out :/

Sasaki Sadoko monument

On Wednesday we took a Shinkansen to Hiroshima. It was raining, which sucked, but at the same time it almost seemed appropriate. We took a streetcar to the giant government building that was right under the atomic bomb when it exploded. However it still withstood some of the blast and you can see the metal framework and crumbling cement. After a lot of controversy, the city decided to keep it as a monument to honor the memory of those who were killed. Then we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The first part of the museum was mostly factual information, charts, and models. The rest of the museum was what really shook me up. There were letters written from first hand witnesses about what they saw happen to their families, torn clothing, bits of skin and fingernails, locks of hair, and mementos, all donated by people who've lost someone to the atomic bomb. Reading the letters was heartbreaking, and seeing the big pictures of burn victims sent chills throughout my whole body. It seemed to get worse with each new picture, but some kind of morbid curiosity rooted me to the spot. I can't understand how humans can bring themselves to do something so awful to other human beings. Every story was filled with so much pain and suffering, but one story stood out to me the most. A family of four is at their house when the flash of light happens. The mother is injured and the father is severely injured. They go into the backyard to look for their children and find that they are alive but stuck up to their torsos in mud. The fire was starting to close in and the mother couldn't pull her children out. Right before the fire was about the engulf all of them, the mother prayed to her children, apologized for being a coward and helped her husband limp to safety. I don't think there should ever be a time when a mother has to make such a decision. After we walked out of the museum, I was stuck is a weird non-communicative melancholic state. We quickly walked through the circular monument and took a quick spin through the park. We saw the giant mound where the ashes of thousands of people are buried, and the statue of Sasaki Sadoko.

Government building dome

A little boy's tricycle and helmet donated in his memory

Thousands upon thousands of origami cranes

Meatmeatmeatmeatmeat.

Then we took the Shinkansen and Lightning Mike taught us how to play Hearts and kicked our asses at it. He shot the moon twice in a row. When we arrived in Kyoto, one of the guys realized he left his passport, rail pass, and another girl's rail pass on the Shinkansen, so Mitchell spent a good hour trying to figure it all out. For dinner all of the seniors went out for yakiniku! There were a billion different kinds of meat, and although I'm usually really picky about what kind of meat I eat, I ate everything that was thrown at me, even cow tongue!! Ahh it was so weird having a tongue that wasn't mine in my mouth. But if you don't think about it, it was actually pretty goddamn good. I also somehow managed to polish off two bowls of rice and ice cream. That night we took a scenic walk back home, and I ended up staying outside of Mitchell's room until 1:30am to mooch off his wi-fi. Accompanied with a trusty can of peach water, I tried to blog, but I think I spent most of the time talking to Nicole or playing scramble. Also some tipsy sake drinkers came giggling out of a room at one point.

Playing hearts on the shinkansen !

Seniors at yakiniku with lightning mike!

Sayonara Tokyo, Konnichiwa Kyoto

April 10 10:35am

Guess where I am right now? I'm on a Shinkansen! That's a Japanese bullet train! They go at approximately a million miles per hour and are really nice on the inside. Nothing really happened this morning. I woke up at 5 to take my morning shower before we set off for KYOTO at 7! Getting to Tokyo station was a struggle during rush hour with all of our luggage, but somehow we managed to not get swallowed up in the sea of people. Lugging suitcases up and down stairs was a pain in the ass and I legitimately worked up a sweat haha. Okay I really want to eat my obento (super cute boxed lunch) now. I'll blog about our adventures in Kyoto later!

April 11 9:54am

Guess where I am now? A bullet train! Again! This time to Hiroshima. But I should probably take this time to finish up Kyoto day one. So after getting off the Shinkansen yesterday, we hopped on a bus that took us to our hotel. Turned out they didn't have any rooms ready, so we ditched our luggage in the lobby and took a trek around Kyoto. We saw loads of people wearing traditional yukatas so I sniped a bunch of pictures. We also saw two women who were completely made up with white faces and red lips so we asked them if we could take pictures with them. After walking around on the streets, lightning Mike led us to this awesome hill with streets completely jam packed with people and lined with tourist traps. I bought my parents these two really cute stone Jizos (protector of children). And a necklace that we got engraved with "日本 2012". A lot of shopping, two ice creams, and one cucumber on a stick later, we arrived at the top which was another temple. The cherry blossoms were beautiful, and we walked around just taking in the view of the city beneath us. Right before we left, we went to this place that had three streams of water coming from the mountain. It's supposed to be the purest water and you wash your hands and then drink it. In order to gather the water we get these long sticks with cups at the end. It was pretty awesome. I followed lightning mike's lead and drank directly from the communal cup. The water was cool and refreshing, and it did not "taste like chicken" like mitchell had said.

Then we headed back to the hotel and at this point I had a really intense stomach ache. Actually I'm not sure if it was my stomach, it was more like a pain in my abdominal region, but moving on. We finally made it back and I laid on my stomach for a good 45 minutes and felt a little better. Then we went back to the Kyoto station and climbed the giant staircase to the 8th floor for some ramen. I shoved my 肉入り down like my life depended on it and effectively brought back my stomach ache. Did I mention that I have an obnoxious cough too? Needless to say, I was beyond relieved when we opted for karaoke instead of a 3 hour hike. Karaoke was fantastic, but I didn't sing. I sort of regret that now, but I had a lot of fun singing along and obnoxiously shaking one of the tambourines they provided us with. We took a scenic night route back to the hotel and I literally crashed. I woke up at 2:30 still in my clothes and contacts haha. So I took a (disturbing) look in the mirror, took my contacts out, and re-crashed.

We're almost at Hiroshima now! Ahhh!

A traditional wedding ♥

Totoro !

Mt. Fuji from the shinkansen window :)