Day 28 (M)

Sekigahara & Tehanabi

Mia and I went to Sekigahara!

And a relief of Tokugawa Ieyasu:

...and that's about all we could find in Sekigahara. There was a park, somewhere, but we didn't have enough time to find it, as we'd made plans to do tehanabi, hand fireworks, with Kazu, Akiko, and Yuka that night. 

We rushed back and got to take our first ever Shinkansen. They are awesome. See pictures later.

That's all for now. Too busy. Ciao. 

~Myra

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...