Day 15 - MO-JO-Nijojo?

Today was a big sightseeing day. Three stops were on our agenda: Kinkakuji, Nijojo Castle, and Kiyomizu-dera. At each one we kept wondering why there were so many foreigners getting in the way! Only to realize... we were still, and would forever be, foreigners too.

First off was Kinkakugi, the golden shrine, and man was it shiny! The building was a serious bright yellow, like gold, and it was also sitting out in the pond so its reflection was double the gold. It was also sitting at the edge of another great garden, which would have been more enjoyable minus the 50 or so tourists and dozens of children on school trips. In some ways I think the experience was dumbed down by their presence, but we of course added to it... so I can't shed all the blame.

A short walk away was Nijojo Castle. It was a beautiful and well kept building that we actually got to go inside (after taking our shoes off, and only on the wooden hallways. Many of the curtains were drawn to preserve the highly decorate tapestries and paintings inside. I don't think we were allowed to take pictures on the inside, but given the chance again I wish we could.

Finally, Kiyomizu, the location I was tasked with researching before our trip. I didn't know about the walk there however. After we finally found the start of the street which led up to Kiyomizu we quickly learned it was all uphill and at least a mile long. Both sides of the street were lined with souvenir shops, kakigori (shaved ice), ice cream, and other small stores, but we kept pushing forward (I already bought my fill of presents for home). We did see a couple of the guys who pulled the carts... it would have been a nice ride up, but we walked anyway.

Eventually we saw the stairs up to the temple, several levels of them. I looked at Lynnette, who I was walking with, knowing that we could stop for a moment after the trek up the hill. "Let's keep going!" I said determinedly, then I started up the stairs, swearing not to stop till I get to the top. We made it in one piece with minimal regret.

Kiyomizu was place on a cliff's edge, with a deck that overlooked the drop down to the forest below. From there, you could see a full line of trees before the cityscape and the mountains behind it. Honestly, this was the moment that I really felt like I was IN Japan. It was my top moment, at the top of a huge hill.... really.

After the main shrine area it was a long winding (but enjoyable) walk down through the woods. Once we reached the bottom of the cliff we found the three fountains, of which you are only supposed to drink from two (wikipedia Kiyomizu-dera, there's a ton of info on it). We didn't drink because the line was clogged with touring students, so we started a much slower, relaxed walk down the hill back to our hotel. The ice cream we got on the way was pretty good too :)

Day 14 - Imperial Palace

For our Kyoto assignment we had to visit five places from the list and write a little information on each. To be honest this assignment could have been done in a day. After a late start our group went from four down to two by the time we reached the Imperial Palace. We missed the tour by barely 10 minutes so we grabbed some lunch and came back for the 1 o' clock tour. Unexpectedly we met a girl from Canada who was travelling around, but we didn't see her much after the tour. We only walked around the perimeter of the Palace, viewing each decorated gate that served for a different class. Large orange columns held up the outside structure, and we could see the open courtyard between the doors. At the rear of the building we saw the gardens, stretched out across the way with interconnecting ponds and heaps of flora wherever you looked. There was so much beauty in this place, it would have been nice to just stay and observe it a little longer, but soon the tour ended and we returned to the Kyoto streets.

From the Imperial Palace we took a bus to Ginkakuji The landscape and gardens were amazingly pretty but the building itself was... underwhelming. We didn't even know we passed it until we reached the end, and then it was like, wait... That's it? It was kind of hidden, and a less shiny silver than we expected, but it was still in good shape. The part that threw us off was the trail took up all the way up a mountain where we tossed some 1 yen coins and tried to get them into a bowl for good luck, and then all the way back down to a small building right before the path became lined with towering bushes (like they would be in a maze, only there was no getting lost here).

By now it was almost 5 o' clock so many touring locations were closing for the day. Since we were unable to visit anymore stops we returned to our hotel. We went wandering around the shopping area again, but this time we had a chance to talk to some of the workers. We had a long surprise conversations with a girl who worked at a bag store (I eventually bought my awesome backpack from her since I needed another bag for check-in). Then a few minutes later, when we were looking for a hat for Lynnette we had a conversation with a different guy... he was probably just trying to convince to buy the hat in the end but we didn't so it was kind of awkard. We also stopped in a store that was decked out in soccer swag- I searched for a jersey for my brother, but they didn't have any of Rinaldo's and I wasn't about to drop $70+ on a shirt he didn't want.

This was the day that we discovered milk tea, it should not be consumed in large quantities.

Day 13 - We Leave For Kyoto

Today was the day that we were going to leave Toyohashi and go to Kyoto. It was a very strange feeling to be leaving my host family, even though we had barely spent a week together, they made me feel really comfortable and I think with more time we could have become better acquaintances. As we left the platform with our families and headed for the shinkansen (bullet train) platform. As we waited for the train a new government official of Toyohashi came to see us off. Apparentely, he had studied in America for a year in highschool so he new a little more English. We briefly talked: when I said that my name was "Hara" (In Japanese) and he asked if I was related to Dr. Hara which was clearly a joke. After that it was hard to hear what he was saying as the train pulled in and took over the sound waves.

The train came and went and then we were in Kyoto. It was raining and by the time we made it to our hotel I think a lot of us were tired. I know the first thing I did was take a nap for a couple hours.

With a little daylight left we went exploring and found a shopping center down the road and across the bridge. As far as I was concerned I had finished most my shopping in Tokyo, so I wouldn't be buying much here. I bought pasta shrimp from Family Mart for dinnerand spent the rest of the evening watching TV and planning our week.

Day 12 - Osu Kannon, Nagoya

THIS PLACE EXISTS!

I say this because I was unable to find the same place when I came back a week later... But that's a different story.

Since the day was Saturday we had the whole day to spend with our host families. Sakiko, my host sister, and I took a two-hour train from Toyohashi to the city of Nagoya. From there we took a subway to Osu Kannon; which, had a very large shopping area like an outdoor/indoor mall. We window-shopped mostly, I found a store that specialized specifically in Korean pop merchandise. At the moment they were loaded with Big Bang. We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant, which was pretty good as far as I can remember; then we returned to Nagoya and explored the bigger city.

The night before, when my host family asked me whats one of the things I want to get in Japan I said an electronic dictionary, not knowing that they would take my answer somewhat seriously. I think they tried to give me one of their older ones, but I wanted one with a writing pad. Its still embarrasing when I think about it. In any case, while we were in Nagoya we went to Big Camera and checked out its prices while waiting for my host mom. We eventually met her in the station; she bought us a tapioca drink, which I thought was going to be amazing but it turned out slimy, weird, and not as sweet as lets say... tapioca pudding. For a while afterward we went around looking for electronic dictionaries. After seeing the prices I did my best to change the subject and end my search. I did end up getting a KAT-TUN CD We had dinner on a restaurant on the 14th floor. My host mom ordered "Unagi No Hitsumbushi" for all of us, which was an eel dish on rice it was probably the best meal I had had yet. I might have ruined the experience a little by experimenting with the seasoning dishes that were provided. Oh well, next time.

Day 11 - Middle School, Brush Factory, Yoshida Castle and Art Museum, oh my!

It's Friday. Today we went to visit a middle school. Our group was divided between two middle schools, so Lynette and I were seperated this time around. Fortunately, however, Dr. Hara was part of our group. After a very brief tour, we went to one of the English classes taught by a former student of Dr. Hara's. We introduced ourselves and walked around the room allowing students to ask us questions. One girl asked me if I liked tennis, of course I said I did which made us both very happy. A few questions later, one of the boys asked me what my favourite cheese was. Thats right cheese. I don't know where he got that from either. My answer was pepperjack, because for some reason I couldn't think of any other cheese. Though, I wish I had since he had no idea what pepperjack was.

There were six of us and six rows of students. To start off we each stood in front of a row and that became our team. We played a game very similar to telephone, but using a sentence in English. I remember I was team number 5 and Bobby, who was next to me, was team 99. My team was very close to winning but of course the team with the teacher as their leader took first place. After that we got to play another game, one that I had not played before. How lucky that these students got to play games all day today. The next game was mutiny and involved cards with different activities on them. The goal was to get the most(or maybe least points) in your hand. At one point during the game, Dr. Hara one rock, paper, scissors against one of the female students. Instead of just taking a card, he looked at her hand and stuck out his tounge and laughed and choose not to take any. He probably won.

Before leaving the middle school we were offered lunch; they had already prepared us trays of food. A bun with a hamburger, a slice of cheese, a bowl of soup, milk, and a dessert. Since the hamburger was suspicious and possible had pork I traded it off for more cheese. The case was the same with the soup and dessert so I ended up with a cheese sandwich and milk for lunch. I'm not complaining it was actually pretty good. After lunch we left the school and met back with our whole group at the bus. From there we headed over to the brush factory.

The "factory" was on the second floor of this really tiny building. Amongst the three to four open rooms there was a variety of animal hairs, brushes (new and old), and caligraphy. We were given the opportunity to make our own brushes-either a traditional caligraphy brush or mini brushes that could be used as keycharms. I already had a caligraphy set so I decided to make two mini brushes, one for myself and another to give as a gift. I think I spent more time actually picking out the colors than actually making them.

After the brush factory we all got back on the bus and headed to Yoshida Castle. To be honest, the castle wasn't really much to see; it was only one standing building near the river with a small courtyard and the building was closed. It just so happened that down the parkway was Toyohashi's Art Museum. We explored the museum for a couple hours, which had its own collection of modern art and some historical artifacts.

That was the end of the group tour for that day.

Tonight when I returned to my host family's house, we quickly went over to their grandmother's they were preparing eggplants in the back of the store. When I first got there the man who I believed was their grandfather was cutting the eggplants on a stool. My host father asked if I wanted to help so I pulled up a chair and started my own cutting. I think together we probably cut up about 20 boxes of eggplants which they were going to use the next morning. I didn't mind the work; I actually enjoyed it. However, their work was far from being done for the night so they brought me back home where I spent the rest of the evening.

Day 10 - Karaoke

I can't believe we only got to spend two days with these people, they are so much fun, and I feel like if we had more time we could really become friends.

Our group met with the Aichi students again today. My group and Lynnette's headed off shopping together. Like most larger stations, there was a shopping center connected to it. It's not like we wanted anything in particular, I mean we couldn't get clothes... we didn't really need them. But after thinking about it, I wanted a hat. Yes. A very cool hat.

We returned to the campus for lunch, yay for rice! Haha, just one bowl since I was still full from breakfast. I also managed to magically drop my mp3 so kpop started blaring next to this table full of guys >_> Great timing? Yup. Why did I have my mp3? Cause we were going to Karaoke and I needed to get comfortable and excited~ we listened to various songs as we walked there. It might have been best to listen to some Japanese, but that didn't really come to mind until I was looking at the song choices and thinking "I dont know any of these lyrics!!"

So I opted to embarass myself with American pop songs. For some reason Backstreet Boy's Everybody sounded like the perfect choice (though it wasn't pointed out till later how awkward that could have been). I'm not much of a singer anyway, but I had to do it for myself. Then I was SHOCKED. Lynnette can SING. Like LEGIT. And then the other girls had really nice voices... whilst we were supposed to be clapping and using the tamborines I would forget and stare at them in amazement, like 'wow, that's good.'

I proceeded to fail by attempting Big Bang's Gara Gara Go, cause it was in Japanese and I THOUGHT I knew the lyrics... but it came a lot faster than I was prepared for XD Then I was thought, 'okay, I should try a girl song' which led to the realization that I really do not know the lyrics to Paramore's Crush Crush Crush. Oh well. It was fun. I'm glad I put myself out there.

BUT! Before the awkward was over, there was one last thing I had to do.

Yesterday, I told Park (the korean exchange student in my group) that I knew the dance to SHINEE's Lucifer, and then on our way to the Karaoke place I told her that if she sung it, I would dance to it.

Well, guess who found the song? :P

Mind you, this was a fairly tiny room, with a table in the middle that took over have the space. Imagine trying to dance in a 2"x3" space. Oh yeah, I bumped into that table a couple times, dropped my hat... made a fine fool of myself. But man, was I glad I had that hat, cause it covered my face pretty well, haha.

After than insanity, high on life and pretty much uninhibited now that the worst was over, we all headed over to the park to set off some fireworks. Sparklers, zipping bees~ We had a great time :)

We returned to the campus again for the farewell Tea Party. Once again, my group supplied several amazing treats, goodies from the convenient stores such as black sugar. One of the girls made a cake, pinapple upside down cake I believe. I received a couple fine gifts too; a plush cat-head keycharm that is used for wiping screens, a letter and picture of Tanaka Koki with it >///> and a beautiful candy display set from a girl whose father works at a candy shop. Its squishy so I suspect there's gelatin.. I haven't eaten it yet, but its better to look at.

We made our final departures. The girls caught the train with me to my stop. We stopped in the music store for a bit, and then I headed home alone.

For dinner, I was surprised with a bike ride to Sakiko's grandparents' house. Good thing you can't really forget how to ride a bike, even though it was awkward (and dangerous) just booking it through streets without really stopping at the corners. Her grandparents' house was connected to a little storefront with baked goodies and treats. Her aunt made us stew, and it was really tasty, but we didn't stay for long. We returned to the apartment on our bikes, and then got a pack of donuts for breakfast from Mr. Donut.

I learned how to say something broke... kowareru （こわれる）which is a lot better than simply saying "my laptop died."

Day 09 - Aichi University, Never Go Hungry

This morning, I woke up to another amazing breakfast. I don't know if it was because I was their guest, or if this was a regular thing, but there was yogurt and an omlette, and juice, and a tiny salad and even little fresh made buns. As usual, I was full very quickly, but I had to clean my plate. I wonder if that made me seem hungry... since... I don't know. In any case, today my host mom and I left together. We went down to the back of the building where the parking garage is. Unlike our parking garages in America, this one was tailored to the occupants of the apartment. Each car had their own space, but! It was set up more like a car elevator. One would simply park their car, close the door, and it gets raised or lowered to its storing location. Really cool!

Anywho, she drove me to Aichi University, our meeting palce for the day. Our group assembled, brought by one family member or another, and then headed off to meet the Aichi students. We all received a packet with our group members names, so we had all of five seconds to search the room and try to spot them before we introduced ourself in front of the group. After which we quickly were separated into groups for some small talk while our supervisors prepared an activity for us. Seeing that one of my group members was actually an exchange student from South Korea, I couldnt help but bring up Kpop :D It was a pretty good ice breaker~

Our activity was to put together a craft!  Following the craft, we had free time with our groups, so we started with lunch. Initially there was only three members of my group (of 8) that showed up, then all of a sudden everyone was there! With lunch! Bentos! For me!? (oAo) Shock. Each of them made a little dish, so I had all kinds of food from friend chicken, to sushi, to veggie things. And it was all delicious. Now I was double full, but incredibly grateful. A few of the members then went to class, while the others took me around campus. We went to the English club first; they had LIFE (the board game) but they had never played it because they didn't know how. So we spent a good hour or so playing that, with my translation attempts slowly guiding the process.

After playing LIFE, my group changed again~ We went to Holiday Park which has a movie theater, arcade, and mall. At first we went into the arcade area and did PuriKura in the fancy photobooths. I was not used to it so in half the pictures... well, see for yourself:

When you're done with the pictures you have the chance to decorate them and add effects outside the booth. Again, it takes a bit to get used to. :P

On the second floor of this fine establishment there was a bowling alley! It was probably the best I have ever bowled (not on the Wii), and I had the chance to share some beginners knowledge with my two group members. The only reason I had any idea is because my parents used to bowl ALOT. We only played one game because we were running out of time. We hurried back to campus where the welcoming party was being held. A party with more food. My goodness. I think there was cheesecake, it was delicious. <3

My host sister, Sakiko, came to walk me back to the apartment. Before I left, I breifly met one of the other host parents (Victor's?); somehow we got on topic about Chinese, which was when I realized, "hey! I know what you're saying, but I can't elaborate on my reply, so...fail". She was really nice though and we had a good conversation.

Holiday Park turns out to have the Steakhouse we ate at on Monday. The waiter looked a lot like Tanaka Koki. I was happy. The end.