Japanese People are So Nice: Wasting Time in Osaka

(Pre Night Bus Adventures: written from the bus)

Let's start this trip off right by screwing up almost everything, shall we?

First, I wanted to get some foods before heading to the city. Nothing expensive, just a meat bun from Mister Donut, no big, perfect beginning for my vacation right? Well I order said meat bun and the cashier asks me a question and I didn't catch it, so when in doubt, nod in agreement. Unfortunately, he was asking if my order was complete which it definitely was not. So I apologized and said I made a mistake, but he thought I didn't want the meat bun and I was not going to embarrass myself further. Fail 1.

So I thought Screw it and I had a nice dinner at Saizeriya, the "Italian" restaurant across the street.

Then, things went correctly as I successfully found required omiyage (souvenir) in Namba. Then, I had to find where the buses were going to leave from, and I didn't even get lost! I walked in the correct direction and everything. Confused a bit, but not lost. The cafe I chose to camp in for the hourish before I left (had iced coffee, bad idea) even played the themes from E.T., Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park! (It was pretty awesome once I realized what I was hearing, haha. Oh Japan) How much more win do we need?

Well.

I return at the appointed time to the bus place and hang out with the milling people I see. One, who knew some English, came over and talked to me, asked Where I was going and things. He was very nice! Then a Japanese dude said something absurdly fast in Japanese and people followed him, but there was a lady with the company of the bus I was riding on her jacket nearby, so I was not concerned and did not think I should follow. (In hindsight, I remember hearing the Japanese guy say the word for 'all' and 'guest,' probably should have followed the crowd like I usually do)

At this point, the guy I was talking to came back for me, expressing concern because I am an idiot and was not in the right place.  He then walked me over to the correct registration area. Fail 2. I was quite lucky he was so nice.

So after that winning move, I get on the right bus all by myself! Yay! Then I need to figure out which seat I am in; there is a list with all of the names in Japanese on a map in the front. It's not hard once I find my name. For SOME unknown reason, I read the simple map wrong, and sat in the wrong seat, and a lady had to tell me so.

Let's hope this trip improves, shall we?

A Trip to the Land of Tea: Uji

I will have all blogs written before I leave. ::determined::

So after school today, a friend and I journeyed to Uji, a train station not to far from where we live. What I know about Uji is that it is a very famous river that is prominent in history and is the setting for the first (romance) novel, The Tale of Genji. I really know it from class when we talked about the Battle of Uji River.

What I did not know was all of the tea that comes from there, green tea especially! There are multiple tea places that have been making tea since the Edo Period. (A very long time). We went to a tea shop that makes green tea (and other tea of course) and we met a man who is a world champion tea maker and is the 16th generation to be making tea. His family's tea was the first to be in the US; he was very proud of his tea. There was even a little museum on the top of the tea shop. It was really cool! (Of course I bought some tea haha)

Lunch was delicious green tea soba noodles (mmmm)! Also featured was a mysterious tofu....that looked and tasted very much like the "soba tofu" my teacher said we ate when we went to No, that I couldn't find anywhere. WELL, turns out that is not what it is called! It's "goma dofu"  (I can see how that would sound similar) and it is made from a sesame seed. No wonder I like it so much! :p

Next, I went to the Byodoin Temple, which also features in the history stuff I learned. To go in the Phoenix Hall part of the temple itself it was very expensive, but there really was no reason to because you can take pictures of the outside and most of the artifacts from inside were moved to the free museum...? So yeah, odd.

Did I mention it was raining and ridiculously windy? Because of course it was.

And I managed to find the stamp for the Byodoin by luck because it was so famous and museum like, I didn't think it had one...Wo0t!

Then we went to a random shrine my friend discovered that was literally a tori gate and a closed shrine with boxes in front. The one box was normal, you put money in and you can pick a fortune. The other was you put money in, and you get a little bag with a type of rock omamori, or amulet-thing. It was cute, so I got one! It means health, but I haven't figured out the rest yet ;p

Finally after walking around the river a little, we headed home before we were blown away! It was a very nice time! Pictures!

Well....I guess I'm off to Nagasaki tomorrow, aren't I? ^.^

~Rosie

Here We Go! Nagasaki Itinerary

First off, here are some Bunraku pictures for you! Yaaay!

Next off, tomorrow is my last day of school for the week! Yay! Tomorrow there are plans to go to Uji (which you will hear about ;p) and then Thursday I leave on the night bus for Nagasaki! Yay! Nagasaki's night bus will be quite a trip; 10ish hours to be precise. Woo. I don't care about the time, it's just something about the night buses. I'm not sure if I'm not used to cars anymore, or the bus itself, but whenever I'm in one I feel like we're hurling down the road at mach speed. My guess is this is probably true, yay.

Here's how far I'm going, just to give you an idea:

So that'll be fun. ANYWAY, once I get there, we have two whole days to fit everything I want to do...or most of it at least. I will arrive Friday late morningish? So here we go!

Friday:
Nagasaki Peace Park
Penguin Aquarium
China Town
Mount Inasa (by cable car)

Saturday:
Huis Ten Bosch, a theme park that will have a rose festival, awesome Golden Week fireworks, and the One Piece pirate ship.


All for Nagasaki? Heck yes! I forgot to mention I will be flying back Sunday morning, so 10 hour adventure only has to happen once haha. There is also the possibility Riyo, her mom, and I will be going to a Hanshin Tigers (baseball) game when I come back! ::crosses fingers::

This hostel supposedly has internet too, and I'm bringing my keyboard. More on Uji before I leave; no one wants to start a trip a blog post behind!

~Rosie

That was Pretty Awesome: Bunraku

So let me start with I'm writing this to stay awake as I wait for Riyo for lunch. I am very mad at my one lecture class right now because he basically made the entire final project due today, so I had to spend all day doing that yesterday. This week is supposed to be a magical thing called Golden Week, which is a string of national holidays that make a mini-vacation (with school on Tues and Wed in the middle), but nooo, I had to waste a day doing these shenanigans.

Grrrrrrrr.

Also, I forgot to mention, on the climb up the ridiculous mountain (yes I am sore haha), one of the students started to sing camp songs. Why yes, yes we did. I sang mentally because I was more focused on the whole breathing thing.

Anyway, Sunday my theatre class went to the National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka to see some awesome puppet theatre. This particular kind of puppet theatre is very intricate; each puppet is controlled by 3 people. It takes 10 years to learn each puppet role, so the puppet masters have been practicing for 30 something years at least. Pretty awesome.

Also awesome: apparently they don't have to rehearse; if the puppet master knows what he is doing, then he can use signals to tell his 2 other puppeteers what to do. Dude.

The music is a shamisen accompanied with a narrator, who sings everything and speaks for everyone. Sometimes there is more than one, but typically there is one narrator and one shamisen player. They sit on a turntable which rotates after a scene to switch pairs. This is because the narration is too strenuous for one pair to do the entire thing. Yeah.

So what made this particularly awesome is because someone knew a guy who knew a guy, we got to meet with a puppet master before the performance and get to learn about and hold the puppets! They were preeettty intricate I must say. And heavy.

I really marvel that they let us do this. People came in late, cell phones went off, and they still let a bunch of gaijin run around and play with the puppets. They were very nice.

The performance itself was long (4 hours) but it wasn't sleepworthy. There was a small part in the middle where it was like Jeez, something happen already but then something did and it was awesome.

We also were given a backstage tour afterwards! Ohyes. It was funny, because our teacher said that they were very strict about taking pictures and stuff, so I figured I wouldn't get any pictures of the actual theater right? On the contrary, not only did I get puppet pictures, I got pictures of the theater and backstage in the theater. Win.

So other than being an all-day affair, I had a great time.  I do have pictures, but I am at school right now, so I will definitely post them in my next entry, which is the itinerary for Nagasaki! Yay!

~Rosie

Not Sohei but Ryuugakusei: Climbing Mt. Hiei

Alright let me explain that first. Sohei are the warrior monks that lived on Mt. Hiei in the period we are studying in class, and ryuugakusei means study abroad students. So, its not warrior monks coming up the mountain, but a huge group of foreigners! Oh no!


Let me rewind a bit to Friday real quick. I warn you, these pictures are not that riveting. I was meeting Davie and Allison for dinner at Ninja Cafe that evening, and I had classes until 1, so since I was going to go to Kyoto I figured I needed to see something else, but that wasn't enough time to see a temple or shrine. So! I wanted to go check out the area around the old Imperial Palace in Kyoto, which I could get closer to than the one in Tokyo because there aren't people living in it, haha. 

Still, you cannot get in without a far reserved tour, so I have many pictures of gates. Whee. So it's a park and I had time, so I walked forever and then sat and read my book.

(Need I mention on the way to the Imperial Palace, I went the wrong way in the subway station even though the path was freakin color coded ;p)

Sidebar! So, as I have told you, I am looking to buy a manga in Japanese here that they no longer translate to English. Happy day, not only did I get the end of the series at the second-hand manga store, I found out there are two other series (they're short, even better)  So I am now on a quest to find them all! I need 3 more. I stopped at two other second-hand bookstores in/on the way to Kyoto and miraculously found their section on my own. Win.

Unfortunately, Ninja Cafe was not what I thought it was going to be. The food was....meh, which I guess is typical at a Japanese buffet. There was a restaurant side, but we, not knowing better, went to the other one. Oh well. There was also a ninja maze, where you walked around with flashlights searching for kanji, and ninjas kept popping out at you. I felt bad because they told us not to shine the flashlights in the ninja's eyes, and when they would jump out I would immediately do so. -.-

So let's talk about today. We climbed a mountain.

Let me mention in my mad dash to the train station (which I made the train seconds before the door closed, victory) I hit one of those Things with my bike. Remember the Things? Random poles in the sidewalk designed to beam bikers? Well I didn't plow into one, but I hit it with the side of me; I can see the bruise forming on my knee already. Yay.

Anyway. Mount Inari was 233 meters. Mount Hiei is 848 meters. Excuse me as I get tired just thinking about it. Fortunately, the weather was awesome. Awesome! Mid 70s, not a cloud in the sky! (Why yes, I got sunburn haha) It was comical watching some 40 odd gaijin hike in a line up this steep mountain. Quite steep. The first stretch I was doing fine, then after the first break I just could not do it. Well I did, but I felt like my body was going to dissolve. Just when you'd think the path would level out, oh wait here's 3 more steep cliffs to drag yourself up! And in a group you can only go so slow. But I kept up! Woot woot!

So when we got to the top (and met the people who took the cable car instead) we had to walk MORE to get to where we were eating lunch. I couldn't keep up this time, even though there was no rocks and stuff to climb over, I was just tired. No matter, awesome lunch on a sunny day in mountain land was waiting for me. And I was never last either. I think that's pretty good for not exercising regularly since I left (well....I mean trading karate for walking and biking).

Then we got to Enryakuji, the temple of the warrior monks! Yay! It was a huge complex, filled with many pretty buildings and temples and bells and lecture halls and goodness! There was so much stuff; there were three different stamp places! (Kinda mad though, I was listening to the teacher and didn't realize one was there, so I only got two -.-) My pictures have some little comments on the various buildings and jazz. I'm glad I go these places with teachers or I would never see half of the stuff we do!

On the way down the other side of the mountain (there were only 20 of us this time, haha) we walked by the temple where there are practicing marathon monks. These monks have a very extreme pilgrimage, where by the end of it they walk a distance equal to the circumference of the Earth! Moreso, if they don't/can't do it, they get to kill themselves. Goodness. They also go 9 days for their aesthetic practices without food or water or sleep. Wow.

At this point, our teacher told us people get injured more often going down a mountain, so be careful. Going down the stairs, someone sprained (ish) their ankle and had to turn around to the cable car. I agree with the down part being more dangerous. Less exhausting, but more life-threatening in a steep fake rocky step like manner. Fun.

But it was really awesome though. Pictures! Although the bike ride back from the station nearly killed me.

Tomorrow? Bunraku! Don't know what that is? You'll just have to see ;)

~Rosie

P.S. Here's some funny stuff I heard people say on the way (the title was something said by my teacher):

::friend A to friend B who is suffering from climbing the crazy mountain::
A: Think of this, you're becoming a mountain Buddha!
B: I'd rather be a living Buddha

"Beware of the monkeys! They could be possessed by the warriors, and could be wielding katana!" ((Blessedly, we saw no monkeys))

::teacher tells us there's a stand that sells sausages and beer at the top of the mountain::
Student: Sausages and beer? At the top of the mountain is Germany, yay!


::And finally::
"So is everyone excited to ride the water slide down the other side of the mountain?"

But Wait! There's More! Sakura at the Japan Mint

So I thought the Hanami-ing was done, the sakura is falling off and the trees are turning green, and then Riyo texts me that Monday we should go to the Japan Mint for a special Hanami.

Me:...?

How could I say no? Apparently, the Japan Mint (which is closed all the time) is open for a special Hanami time, with special various kinds of sakura that were definitely not the same as all the other sakura pictures. And Monday was the last day for it. So it was really cool! AND I got to see (the outside of) the Japan Mint, which is where they make all the money! AND there was festival food.

Nothing but love for the festival food.

So it was a very nice day (just like today bwaha) to see sakura and eat yumminess. Although it was weird; apparently, every year they plant a new sakura plant...but the one with the sign saying 'This year's sakura' had a man with a megaphone next to it saying that wasn't it? It was weird; later down the path we saw the real this year's sakura....then why make the other sign? It probably says more, I don't know. Haha.

SO that was fun. Unlike today, which had a test of evil, and for my project I had to check books about the Allied Occupation out of the Japanese library. Fun.

~Rosie

Oh yeah pictures!

I Whip My Hair Back & Forth: Kabuki & The Kyoto Tower

I have an unholy amount of work to do this week, so why not post a blog entry instead! I'm such a good student :) (I seriously worked on homework stuffs today though, so I'll do more after this lol)

So Saturday my class and I gaijin-smashed our way to Minami-za, the Kabuki Theater in Kyoto. I was a bit wary, considering the show we were seeing was based on a Noh play. Fortunately, this play was not 5 hours long, and was a nice 2. I like 2. The first half wasn't even a show; it was a sort of "Kabuki for Beginners" thing. From what I took of it, they showed us how the stage worked and the trapdoors and the costumes and things. However, he said a bunch of things in Japanese that I'm sure were really interesting, and I wish I understood them. However, I am used to this. The people who were sitting behind me however, were not happy. Silly gaijin.

(PS, seating in a Kabuki theater? Not assigned; they open the doors and you fight people. It was like Black Friday; we got some decent ones on the ground floor, but they were by no means the best)
The actual kabuki show we saw was a million times better than the Noh one. Sweet goodness was it better. It was about this story where a lion pushes his son off a cliff to test his skill, and the baby lion sees his dad is worried and climbs back up. It was based off a Noh play so there was no cool stage work, just a pine tree in the background. Boo. But the music was awesome, 5 shamisens playing in unison. I don’t want to compare a shamisen solo to a cooler banjo, but that’s seriously what it reminded me off.  Anyway, after a random (still funny) banter between to Buddhist monks about how to ward off the lions, the father and son actors come back on stage dressed in awesome lion costumes, complete with epic manes….which they proceed to whip around crazily. I would pass out from dizziness I tell you. This video doesn’t do it justice, but seriously, crazy hair whipping.

Oh here’s pictures from the day, I couldn’t take any of the performance and it was hard to be sneaky haha.

Afterwards we found a teeeeeeeeny food place to eat delicious gyoza and …crab? Omu rice? Not sure (Omu Rice: Omelet filled with omelet things and rice, very delicious and filling). Then, I set out to go to Kyoto Tower, because hell, I was already in Kyoto, why not? I would go hit up some temples, but they were all closed by then. So I asked someone which bus to take (it’s the station, it can’t be that difficult) and headed towards Kyoto Station! (PS, on the way to the station, I ran into my other lecture teacher, not the one who took us on this field trip…crazy!)

….I had no idea how huge Kyoto Station was. Seriously. HUGE. Jesus. After closing my open jaw, I turned around and headed for the big tower-looking object (I love how easy it is to find those, haha) It was on top of a building, so it took a minute for me to get in and to the top, but it was very nice to see all the temples mixed in with the modern-day Kyoto. (I also spied a giant Buddha in the distance…need to check that place out)

Time to go home! I forgot to write down which trains to take! Oops. But no worries, I took the Shinkansen out of here before; I just take that route backwards, right? Easy! SURE, except I had to find said route in the HUGE TRAIN STATION. I was pointed in the correct directions, and I followed signs, but I could not find it for the life of me. Finally, I said screw the English and followed the kanji. Glad I did; it turns out in the hallway they changed the translation, I don’t know why. THEN I found the correct train. No fair people.

So this week has a lot of school work in it. Yay. But I did some of it! Check it out:

I made this for class!

~Rosie