Day 27 (SUN)

Today we were supposed to go to Kyoto with Ben, but he was feeling sick, so we were on our own. We set of at 8 and decided to go to Lake Biwa, which is the largest lake in Japan. It took awhile. But it was a an adventure! Check out this awesome display at one of the stations: 

And ice cream vending machines: 

After four hours of travel we reached Sakamoto station and from there made our way to Hiei-zan (Mt. Hiei) where we took a cable car to the top, on the way enjoying the awesome view of Lake Biwa. When we reached the top, we went to Enryaku-ji, which was a super cool temple complex with lots of stuff to see. And more ice cream. 

Here's a view of the city and Lake Biwa (the largest lake in Japan).

3D map!

Up to a shrine thing:

After coming down we tried to make our way to the shore of Lake Biwa, but were foiled by beach front properties. But at least we managed to get curry pan on the way. 
Next, we went to Gion. We didn't see any maiko and spent too much money, but I had fun.

Day 26 (SAT)

Today we again made our way to Nara, this time to the city proper. We were joined by a new Japanese student named Nami. Our schedule had us going to three different temples, but the first one nobody want to actually go into, we spent too much time petting the deer, 

then we lost half the group to Namba, so we skipped the next shrine and went straight to Todaiji. 

The is a legend that anyone who could make their way though this tiny hole would gain happiness: 

All three of us made it through. 

It was pretty cool, and it would have been nice to explore the grounds more, but Myra and I were on schedule, so we split from the group and went looking for a quick lunch before catching the train. The bakery I wanted to curry pan at was right next to the station, so Myra thought it might be better to look a little further away. Right next to the bakery was a shopping street, so we went do that. We ended up spending like an hour in a used kimono store, where we bought way to much stuff for great prices. My theory is that the Japanese just aren't generally interested in second hand stuff. 

We had been planning to go to what we call the 'waterfall park', but it closed at 5 and it was an hour train ride away, so with the time we spent shopping, then finding trains, we couldn't make it. So instead we went to Nabari. It took us about two hours to get there, so we couldn't spend much time there. Since we didn't actually know what there was to do in Nabari, we just walked towards the mountains. 

This turned out to be a good idea. We saw dozens of tiny froggies! They hung around the rice patties and jumped around the sidewalk and into the water. The scenery was really pretty, and the air so humid that we could feel it weighing down on us. I really liked the frogs too. 

After a delightful hour in Nabari, we made our two hour journey home. We got back early enough for me to make a curry soup that actually turned out pretty good. 
It was a fun day. 

Day 25 (F)

After class was a class meeting, then only a few of us went to the flower arranging class (ikebana). It was mecha fun. We couldn’t understand most of what the teacher was trying to tell us (all in Japanese), but we got the gist of it, and we could easily play with flowers.

Here are all of us and our finished products: teacher, Harrison, Sky, Mia, Ani, Tin, and Myra. We got to take home the flowers.

Following that, us 3 went to Umeda (about an hour away with all transit) to meet Beniko-sensei who had offered to take us to dinner at a tofu restaurant. We were 15 minutes late due to poor planning on our part and having to walk to / find the meeting spot....

It was mecha fun, and mecha delicious. Never though to hear myself say that about tofu, but it’s true. The restaurant was lovely, traditional style, with a private room. Our menu was at least 10 items long — all in small portions, but many many dishes. See these:

Most was tofu, there was also a tofu cheese dish and some veggies, one raw fish sushi-like serving (yumO-O), primarily tofu. Tofu can be cooked in a million different ways I now believe. Trying all the different dishes, some of them very delicious, some so-so. 

Dessert was tofu ice cream for the others, which was yummier, and green tea ice cream for me, which was interesting:

After dinner, which took about 2 hours, we went to a store to look at yukata, but all expensive (but pretty), walked around the department store a bit, then Beniko-sensei took us to a hotel lobby and we got tea/coffee. Here is a picture of her. Her English is excellent, and we were able to talk about many things, like living in Utah and teaching, especially the exchange program she is trying to arrange between IBU and SLCC. It was an enjoyable evening and very nice of her to take us out and around. 

Bed time, ciao.

Day 24 (TH)

We went to a mandatory English class thing to introduce ourselves in front of a bunch of first-year students, in both English and Japanese. We did pretty well, and us 3 got to here the other U of U students’ introductions for the first time.... After the intros, the instructor Igawa-sensei split us up, 2 IBU students per U student, so we could ask each other questions. The two students I talked to, 1 asked questions about politics, the other about sports. I feel I wasn’t very helpful. But it was fun in all.

Right after that we went to meet Akiko, Yuka, and (it turned out) Kazu, to go to Nanba for kimono/yukata shopping. 

We had some fun shopping for stuff, after which we went to eat okonomiyaki, 

then went to buy temochi hanabi, hand fireworks, and then went to do puriguru. Puriguru, short for ‘print group’ or something, is the box photo booths. Except these are more fun. Once you take the pictures, there is a screen where you can change colors, add writing/stamps, and change people’s hair color. That was fun. Also, the pictures aren’t just pictures, but stickers. Handy.

Then we went home very tired, it was rather late at that point, and Mia and I  hadn’t done any of our homework... but oh well. 

Day 23 (W)

This was our day to try and watch a few clubs... but it didn’t work so well. First, Yuka’s yosakoi practice was cancelled, and we ran into her on the way and she took us to the Kendo club... which was also cancelled for the day. So we made the appointment to go shopping with them the next day, then sat around the lounge until Yoko got there.

Japanese people are always about 10 minutes early. It’s considered incredibly rude to arrive late to anything. 

We’d invited other students but no one wanted to come except Cory. So the 5 of us walked down to a Nepalese restaurant near the station. It wasn’t a cheap meal, but for Indian food it was a good price, and lots of food. They gave us these HUGE pieces of nan. Big as half a pizza. Yoko is coming to Utah in August for 8 months, studying at the U of U. Her English is probably the best out of all the students we’ve met. We talked a lot, quite fun, nice to talk to both Yoko and Cory.

Walked home and did homework.

Day 21 (M) & Day 22 (T)

Day 21 (M)

After class about 12 students (U and IBU) went to Karaoke, for some reason we split to 2 rooms. Gives more chance to sing, makes us tired faster. Not quite as fun. Still it was nice. 
Funny music video backgrounds inserted:

Afterwards Ani, Mia, and I stayed near the station for some shopping. End.

Day 22 (T)

We went again to the English club, where played Who-Am-I and listened to Beniko-sensei tell a story in English. She repeats words often, says them in different ways, sometimes explains in Japanese. After she left we chatted a bit with the students. Mia and I gave the club a few books we’d brought and were planning to leave behind — they had us sign them :)

Later we were approached by an IBU student who speaks very good English, Yoko, and she invited us out to dinner the next day...

Backtrack - Sunday (20th) Festival - From Ani

I went to the school festival with several of the other ryugakusei (exchange students) and a few Japanese students. 

Picture from the start of the day.

The guys in the picture all played in the dodge Frisbee, which I missed ‘cause I was meeting with Eri-san. They apparently lost horribly, but I’d still wanted to see it.

After the game we bought lunch and looked at the shopping stalls. I bought a few things since they were inexpensive. ^^

All the festival activities we went to were interesting, I heard several songs sung that I knew; and the dancing was really fun. For the English club they had a bubble thing-a-ma-jig that was fun.

I went to see the shodo exhibit with Eri-san and Skye, which was fun. They had lots of interesting writings posted up, and they had a place where you could make your own. I wrote one, but didn’t want to keep it.

Pic comparing the three different types of shodo (the club’s, mine, and Skye’s)

We also saw a yukata competition; I couldn’t understand enough of what they were saying to know what they were talking about, but it was still fun.

Later I went to the manga club with Serina-san, Eri-san, and Ben. It was fun! I got a drawing of my manga self ^^ (it’s on facebook if you want to look at it).

Serina-san and her manga drawing.

After that all the clubs were cleaning up so we went to join Kazu-san and Dwight at the soccer field, and Kazu-san taught me (and Dwight) the basics of playing soccer. It was a lot of fun! Though my hip was hurting afterwards, probably wasn’t very good for it....

Overall it was a great day! とてもたのしかったですよ！^^

Day 20 (S)

Myra and I made a second excursion into Kyoto while Ani and the rest of our classmates attended the school festival at Shitennoji.

Myra and I are getting to be very proud of our success in navigating the trains to get places. We had to take the train to three different places today, and not once did we get lost! We even made it back in time to catch a bus!

Our first stop was Byodoin, which is depicted on the back of the 10 円 coin. See:

It was raining when we got there, and since all of Saturday we carried around umbrellas without it actually raining, we had taken the umbrellas out of our bags. It was ok at first, then it turned into a waterfall and we were soaked. Luckily for us, we were able to shelter at this museum until it stopped raining. It had some English signs too.

(pictures of the some of the famous 52 Bodhisattva)

Then we went to Tofukuji, which was pretty, but boring:

Then we debated about going to Kurama-dera, but were too tired, so we went back to the shopping area near Kiyomizudera and bought souvenirs. 

We saw what we think were either maiko or geisha:

Then, lugging a bunch of bags with us, we went to Kyoto station, which is gigantic and huge. It was fun, though probably would have been more fun if we weren’t tired and carrying bags. 

Long day, but pretty successful.

Day 19 (S)

Today we made our first excursion into Kyoto! It was lots of fun, but unbearably hot. I hate humidity. 

First we went to Kiyomizu-dera, which is my favorite temple so far, probably my favorite tourist visit so far too (not counting the aquarium). It is a rather large complex with lots of little shrines and nice grounds.

 I bought lots of Omamori there. Myra and I both tried Omikuji, which is a form of fortune telling; first we shook a little barrel container and dumped out a stick with a number on it, then the monk gave us a little piece of paper from the stack with our number and that told us what sort of luck we had.

I got the highest luck on the list, Myra got the second lowest. So to dispel her bad luck, Myra tied her fortune to the little sticky frame thing where you tie your fortune to dispel the bad luck.

Then we went to lunch at this cool little soba shop with expensive noodles:

Then we set off for Kinkakuji, doing lots of stopping at shops on the way. We didn’t actually buy that much, just did lots of window shopping.

To get too Kinkakuji, we caught a bus near Kiyomizu-dera and rode it to Kyoto station (which is huge), and then swapped to a different bus. About 20 minutes into the second bus, someone finally noticed that we had left Skye behind somewhere (Kyoto station it turned out). Luckily, the Japanese students took care of finding him and we were happily reunited at Kinkakuji right before it closed. So we toured the temple grounds twice. Here is a picture of the only important part of the grounds:

Then we caught a bus, most of the group left us, and the three of us + Kazu and Ben went to Gion, where we saw a cool temple (for free)

then to a yakitori restaurant. It was interesting, but expensive and very slow service. We had planned to find the historic section of Gion, but because the food took so long, we ended up just heading back to the dorms. We were 20 minutes to late to catch the las bus, so we walked back to the dorms. I am beginning to hate the walk back, since we seem to only do it out of necessity.

Here is a vending machine at the bus stop in Kyoto:

(it has neckties, batteries, and camera memory cards)

It was a successful day :)

Day 16 (W) and Day 17 (TH)

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We finally had time to do our homework, write our skits, and practice them, and study. Just for the ‘roleplaying’ test because honestly we had no idea about the other one... and that night we made curry again which was yummy.

On Thursday we had our test, where the teacher let us pick randomly a skit to perform. Happily Mia & I picked the longest one we’d written... it went pretty well I think.

First, however, we had the somewhat unexpected grammar test. Not that we hadn’t known, we’d been told the day before (it’s on the syllabus but who reads the syllabus?), but we didn’t realize it was so HARD. I don’t think anyone studied. It was a tough test, Mia left about half of hers blank because she just couldn’t read the questions fast enough (too much kanji she didn’t know and stuff). 

We learned our scores the next day, I did better than I expected, with a 79. Mia refuses to let me post her score....

Happily, after that terrible thing we did our role-play tests, which were fun, so we ended feeling pretty good about ourselves.

Later, Mia and I went to the yubinkyoku (post office) to get stamps and mail postcards.... Also, the ATM there works for our debit cards, big sigh of relief *phew*. 

We’d invited people over for curry for 350¥, Ben, Cory, and Tin took us up on it, so we cleaned the place and around 6:30 we all had yummy curry. They turned on the TV so while eating we watched various amusing Japanese shows and chatted. They left around 7:30 and Mia and I had more free time to read etc. before bed. For once!

No pictures for this post, but the weekend will be lovely!

Videos. Finally!!!!!!!

Finally videos posted. No info in videos themselves.

Shitennoji:

Water Purification

Koi

Turtle

Pagoda

After:
Okonomiyaki

Karaoke:
Singing & Room

Nara Hiking:

Asian Giant Hornet

Lucky Gold Bug

Ducks in Nara

Day 15 (T)

After class we had a class meeting, where they made count of how many people planning to go on the Kyoto excursion this weekend. After the meeting Azuma-sensei tried to help Ani out with her hip stuff, tried calling the insurance company (but their Japan number was NO GOOD!), took her to the clinic where they told her basically to wait and see if it gets worse. Whoopee do. She’ll try not to walk much.

After that, we had our Shodo lesson! Shodo is Japanese calligraphy, literally (書道) ‘the way of writing’. We got our own writing area at a desk covered with a felt-like cover for spills (shitajiki), many sheets of nice paper (hanshi), a weight for the paper (bunchin), a fude (brush), a suzuri (inkstone), and a stick of pretty black ink (sumi). 

The Shodo teacher (whose name I unfortunately can’t remember) showed us stroke order and gave examples, showing us calligraphy. He had us draw some simple kanji, gave us suggestions, then we drew whatever we wanted. Not that we learned much, but it was a lot of fun trying to draw the kanji in a nice calligraphic way. 

After the lesson (or playtime) he gave us neat-looking calligraphy/picture pieces. 

The next thing we did was to go to an English club meeting. There were roughly 11 Japanese students + Beniko-sensei, then us 3 and Dwight went to talk with them. First we did basic introductions, then we played ‘Who Am I?’ (which we taught to them). They were very shy and most didn’t speak at all, but it was fun and we were welcomed to come next week (which we shall!). So we are finally socializing :)

A day too busy to eat, we finally were rewarded after we went to the store and bought makings for curry & rice. The curry was delicious. Eggplant + daikon (radish) + carrots + meat = yummy curry. The rice is expensive but really yummy.

Also we found the choco-cone things. We ate from both ends at once :)

Day 14 (M)

Quick note: I usually quote prices in ¥ (or 円) because the conversion is roughly 1/10. i.e. 650¥ is about 6.50. Now, it's not exact, it's more like .94 yen to the dollar, but we don't like to think about that because it makes it more expensive ;p

Hey, results for test!

Myra got an 88, Mia got a 68. Mia is pleased with herself, and I am pleased with her too :)

Ani also had a test that she got results back on — she got a 94 on the Kanji test, but only a 68 on the writing test. Still not bad. Keep in mind these teachers are very tough graders (tick facing the wrong way? = batsu! (X) and no points for the question.)

After class we went to an English class — actually a collection of about 3 classes, about 50+ students. The event was put together by English teacher Beniko Mason (American husband), and she simply had the students divide themselves into 9 groups and each one of us Utahns got to be the spotlight of a group.... Beniko-sensei’s goal is to try to get more students interested and serious about studying English. We talked for a little with the students, they had sample questions they mostly went off, but since we swapped groups twice it was hard to get beyond name introductions and a host of basic questions (what is your hobby, what are/do you think of Japan, where you wish to go in Japan, etc.). 

After that, a couple students (Yuka and Akiko) asked me if I had time to talk with them a little more, their English was fair and it was fun. Yuka does ‘yosakoi’ (?), a traditional dance, and Akiko does kendo (swords), they told us when they practiced and said we could come watch. We tried to find the dance later, but when we didn’t see Yuka anywhere we gave up until later. 

Later, after having eaten almost nothing all day, a group of students led by Serina and Kazu went to get ramen. The original plan was yakitori (chicken), but the shop was hosting a party and was full, so in the end we went to KuroFune (black ship) and had real ramen. 
(Below is miso ramen, with meat and green onions.)

It was good, if not a little pricey. (1000¥!)

But they make it in front of you (kind of), which is cool.

End Monday.