April 7-13 - (Mon-Sun) - A Few More Gates

Monday: After lugging packages to the post office, then one back because it was too big (stupid Myra), and repacking into smaller boxes, I met up with Kaori and her sister for lunch. Only English! After speaking only Japanese the few days of my trip, it was actually difficult for me. Nice time though!

For dinner I went out with my (former) Murata students. They are so good to me, and I’m happy just watching them be happy with each other. I am so lucky to have had such great students. I hope we can remain in contact and continue to be friends in the future.

The meal was excellent too :)

I tried the mini-squids!!

Tuesday: I woke early and walked to the station for my day trip to Kyoto. On the way I found these interesting bug nests.

It’s a 3 hour journey by normal trains (with the cheap all-you-can-ride ticket), but I was able to nap and arrived at Fushimi Inari Shrine ready for adventure. The various shrines over the mountain are cool, but the main attraction is the hundreds and hundreds and maybe thousands of torii, or Shinto gates, which you walk through as you go up and around the mountain. Behold:

It is like this most of the 30 min. walk to the first overlook. 

I think it costs about $4,000 to donate a gate inscribed with your family or company name. There was a sign with the price ranges but I forgot to take a picture. (One website says it costs between $2,000 and $7,000.)

Inari is the Japanese god of rice, meaning also of agriculture, sake, fertility, industry, merchants, and so forth. Inari is not specifically any one god, or specifically male or female, although when I’ve heard of Inari it’s usually as ‘she’. Inari is also the god of foxes, they are her messengers, and the shrine is covered with statues and pictures of foxes. 

I couldn’t figure out what was in their mouths, because I thought there were only 2 things (like the Chinese lions) — so I thought a ball and a scroll or a key — but it seems they can have different things and that’s why I was confused. Mostly it is a jewel and a key, but sometimes it’s a scroll, a sheaf of rice, or a fox cub.

The shrine itself did not have any English pamphlets that I could find so I read off Japan travel sites and wandered around getting not quite lost. Apparently most people only go to the first overlook unless you want to make a real hike out of it, so I ended up walking too much, although it was a nice place. 

Here is a crow trying to eat a prayer candle.

And here are cute statues.

And a totally disappointing tai-yaki parfait:

Tai-yaki is basically a pancake shaped like a fish, filled with red bean paste. Add parfait to that, and it sounds like the middle would also have ice cream and stuff. Unfortunately not. Just the pancake with a bit of whipped cream, banana, and corn flakes. Not even full. Not even a little bean paste. When I get home I'm gonna make my own, grr!!!

After that I headed out to find Nijo Castle, as I’d read there was like a shopping street nearby. Well, there wasn’t, but I’d wanted to see the castle anyway so I did. The main building is just super fun to walk through, not because of the throng of tourists (ugg) but because the floors are textured wood that give off a squeaking sound when you walk. These are called Nightingale Floors, and were made that way to alert inhabitants of intruders. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed in the building, but here it is from outside.

Then I explored the grounds, which were pretty.

Wall-scaling attempt:

After that, it was back to Kyoto station, (natsukashii!)

where I ate ramen 

then caught my trains back to Sabae. I was dead tired but the trains were full so I couldn’t sit. But there was a woman with a toddler and a baby and the toddler kept both the baby and me entertained. So so cute!

But I was miffed that a) nobody offered her their seat and b) one guy was standing right in front of the extra fold-down seat and did not bother to move to let her (and me) sit. Some while later, my feet really were dying, the woman with the babies had gone, and this guy moved, so I reached for the handle, grasped it, started to pull the seat down… and another guy rushed right up and stood in front of it. I couldn’t believe it. I shared an exasperated look with another standing woman and had to wait until this jerk left before I could sit. Some people.

I slept 10 hours that night!

Wednesday: Today is the 1-week mark!! I finished packing!! That night Miki threw me a farewell party, we and a couple of her friends ate Italian then went to karaoke. It was quite fun, although I didn’t know her friends so it was a bit awkward, although they were very friendly. But I didn’t get back until after 1am. Apparently 8pm is rather early to be eating dinner.

Thursday: It rained! Oh no! Stay strong, sakura!

Friday: I walked to the park and said goodbye to the red pandas.

Can you find them all?

I met the new teacher David and attended my very last teacher meeting. No, I didn’t have to, I’m not a teacher anymore. Wa.a.a…

That night Alice and I went to Italian with Sayuri. It was fun having Alice pronounce the dish names and teach us words and tell us that no, potato definitely doesn’t go on pizza. Hehehe.

After dinner we went to Asuwa Yama to see the 340-year-old shidare-sakura.

Lovely!

And I learned (again, I think) of the two lions in front of shrines that one with the mouth open is saying ‘ah’ as the sound one makes when first born, and the other is saying ‘un’ or the last sound one makes at death.

Saturday: Alice, Nathan, Sayuri, and I went to Fukui for a day of fun. First we ate omu-raisu — omelet rice, which was pretty tasty, then we went to see the Echizen Jidai Gyourestu (Parade). The parade started from the site of the Fukui castle, which is now occupied by an ugly yellow government building, but they put up fake wooden doors for them to walk out of so it was pretty nice. 

And the sakura was lovely. 

And there were guys boating around in the moat, ready to retrieve canes dropped by old ladies.

When we got tired of standing in the wind, we headed off to a ‘Sweets Festival’ which was a gathering of local cafes to sell their sweets. It was pretty fun sampling and seeing all the sweets.

After some shopping, we went back to see the shidare-sakura in the daylight,

sat about at a cafe that only had drip-coffee (so we got other stuff), took some more pictures,

then went home. 

Sunday: Yoga was followed by much eating of good food at Yoshida’s (Ralph’s restaurant). They are moving, so they aren’t sure if they’ll be able to open a cafe or restaurant again in their new home or elsewhere. That’s pretty sad, but I’m sure they’ll have enough friends visiting whom they can cook for ^^

The afternoon was relaxed and filed with food. And presents. I’m lucky to have made friends like these.

Recent Japanese:

tai (鯛) = sea bream

buri (鰤) = yellowtail

tokai (都会) = city

furi o shite = to pretend something; shiranu furi wo suru = pretend you don’t know

yomigaeru (甦る) = be ressurected

kuzure (崩れ) = crumbling, collapse

myou (妙) = strange, unusual

sukima (隙間) = crevice, gap

kotsu (コツ / 骨) = knack, skill, trick, e.g. eigo no kotsu arimasu ka? = is there a trick to English?

Recent Italian:
mi chiamo Myra = my name is Myra
sono felice = I'm happy