Month: May 2007

So after the green tea ice cream break we headed off in a light rain to check out Nanzen-Ji to the east. there were still quite a few people wandering around in spite of the rain. but by the time that we arrived at nanzen-ji it was pretty far from being a pleasant day. nanzen-ji is yet another temple that was featured in “lost in translation”. it’s the one with the super huge pillars in the temple. you can pay a couple hundred yen and actually go up into the second floor of the temple. which we skipped. and there are quite a few little side and sub- temples too. and did i mention that the stairs up to the temple are HUGE?!?!? like triple the size of normal stairs!

after nanzen-ji we walked a little north through some kinda twisty streets and found the beginning of the Philosopher’s Path. it’s a little path that runs canal side for about two kilometers in a mostly residential area with a few shops or cafes sprinkled here and there along the way. a popular philosopher named Nishida Kitarou used to walk along the path every day. we walked pretty briskly but it just went on and on! we already knew that we would sleep well later that night. and the day wasn’t done yet!!

after our long walk we finally arrived at Ginkaku-ji – the silver temple!! it was near closing time but it was absolutely packed!! tourists everywhere you looked. (even in the mirror) i was really excited to see that i somehow got a few pictures that didn’t have windbreakers and umbrellas in all the colors of the rainbow…. ;-)

we were pretty thoroughly exhausted after all of that walking so jumped on a bus to head back in the direction of our hotel with the intention of finding a tasty restaurant a little closer to home. however, we ended up just wandering more and more around the station… everything was either absolutely packed, unapetizing, or really expensive. so we proceeded to the supermarket in the basement of kyoto station and bought some bento boxes (lunchbox sets). they were tasty and gave mom & gramma a chance to try a bunch of traditional japanese foods (the normal ones, not the fancy ones).

After breakfast we went back to the train station and figured out how to get to the National Museum of Modern Art. There was an art deco jewelry exhibition that i really wanted to see. and it was AMAZING!! i wish i could have taken photos of everything in there. there weren’t actually that many pieces of jewelry being exhibited – quite a few brooches, cigarette cases, necklaces, and little sparkly things, but what we saw was just breathtaking. there were a lot of drawings and designs on yellowed and probably crispy paper. but it was beautiful to see the different designs and then a few of those designs actually in their three dimensional realizations. there were also a few pieces of clothing – evening gowns from the same period….made me want to go home and sew something gorgeous.

the museum is really close to heian jingu (shrine) – which was actually shown in “lost in translation”. it had started to rain shortly before we reached the museum and was still drizzling when we got out so we didn’t bother with the gardens at heian jingu. but i’ve heard that they’re absolutely beautiful…. we looked around the outer grounds a bit and even saw the tail end of a traditional japanese wedding. well, not the ceremony at all, but the wedding party was dressed in their garb and taking casual snapshots with each other. so we zoomed our cameras to the max and took advantage. ;-)

after our wonderful rest at our cute little hotel we woke up bright and early for a day crammed full of sightseeing. there are somewhere around 1600 shrines and temples in kyoto so we had a hard time whittling the list down to just three days worth. at the top of the list (mine at least) was fushimi inari. it’s actually a little south east of the central area of kyoto so i guess not that many people go there – though it’s certainly popular enough. wikipedia article on fushimi inari with a link to the official website too.

anyway. it was really awesome!! there are thousands of bright reddish-orange torii (gates) that line paths going up the mountain. they were all donations to the temple, so the writing that’s on the back side says who donated it – sort of like permanent, pretty advertising for a lot of companies apparently. it felt like i was walking through a giant modern art project. the gates came in all different sizes – some of them were about normal ceiling height and some of them were monstrously huge.

We went about half way through the paths and took about 8million photos… we took a different pathway down and ended up seeing a lot of little side temples (and very few gates) and a bunch of average japanese residences. plus a really fun poster (hhheheheheh) and a strange buddha. we got hungry and ate breakfast at a SUPER cute and tasty place before moving onto our next bit of sightseeing.

Our train to Osaka left Nagoya station at around 8am so we left Nisshin at like 6:30!! torture!!!!!! but it wasn’t too bad – i slept most of the three hour train ride there. :-P mom and gramma stayed up to take photos all the way there.. after we arrived we crammed our backpacks into a coin locker at the station and then wandered around a little lost trying to get our bearings in the station. a helpful english speaking goodwill guide pointed us in the right direction and even gave us a little photocopied map of the exit we would be going out of! handy!!

first we walked around dottonbori area (the dottonbori river goes through the middle of it). there are a lot of shops all nestled nicely in covered walkways. we had breakfast at starbucks of all places! …they’re everywhere – pointless to resist!! i’m pretty sure we ventured into the shinsaibashi area, but i’m not really sure. we were just wandering pretty aimlessly – zigzagging our way through the streets. there were a lot of clothing stores and miscellaneous goofy shops but nothing super marvellous or outrageous. of course we took photos of the gigantic “glico” neon sign. Glico is a foods company in japan (they make gum and drinks and ..stuff) and their giant sign is synonymous with osaka. and then we also rode a ferris wheel! got a nice view of the city.

And then it was off to SUMO!!!!! We specifically decided to hop over to Osaka just for the day because the sumo tournament was coincidentally happening while they were here. here’s the official website – in english and also available in japanese if you want to try to be authentic…or just confused. I had watched sumo last year in june in nagoya and had all sorts of fun. i hope that mom and gramma had just as much fun as i did. truth be told, i don’t know much of anything about sumo – some of the background history and the basic rules, but no players’ names or anything.. but i still enjoy watching!!

After sumo we walked around aimlessly trying to find somewhere that had appetizing (non-octopus related) food! and possibly an english menu. but that got frustrating and we ended up going into a little buffet style shop with a friendly waitress who strongly invited us in. gramma had some really tasty fish; mom’s wasn’t as good; and i wasn’t impressed. but it was food and not bad and filled us up.

After dinner we made our way back to our faithful train station and i asked to find out how to get to the appropriate train station to go to kyoto. we saved a bunch of money by going directly from osaka to kyoto. we took what i thought was the express train but turned out to be a packed local train (smae price). all of the trains were running behind – really unusual for japan!!! so we just took whichever one came first and that we could cram into. but there was no airconditioning and with a ton of people smashed in we all started sweating awfully quick!! gramma got to sit down about half way there which was definitely a good thing.. :-)

We arrived at kyoto station – which is quite huge!! and we were all pretty tired…. i remembered which exit the hotel was near so we made our way in that direction but soon discovered that no one actually had a map for where it really was!! hehhheeehehehh… thank god for japanese cell phones – i connected to the internet and we found it a few minutes later. Here’s the site we found it through: Hostelz.com.

Wowsers…been a long time!! for those of you that don’t know – i no longer have internet at my apartment so it’s kind of tough for me to update regularly. and i’ve been really busy with trips, decisions, and of course work and beer and regular life too!! so i have a bajillion pictures and stories to add – hopefully i’ll get through a good bit of it today. but i’m planning on breaking the posts into smaller chunks that are easier to swallow (and write). ;-)

FIRST: my lovely momma and grandmomma came to visit me!! it feels like it was a long time ago, but it was really only about a month ago.. i must be getting old – time is moving quickly and my memory fails me about 6 seconds after it’s over…

they arrived on march 21st at the nagoya centrair airport. my wonderful friend fumie was incredibly kind and drove me to the airport to pick them up. we spent our first full day just running around locally in nagoya. we went to nagoya castle and climbed a million flights of stairs all the way to the top!!

After the castle we hung around the sakae area of nagoya – lots of shops and tall buildings. we went to Tokyu Hands – a giant department store that has all kinds of goodies. costumes, toys, home furnishings, decorations, paper goods of a million billion different kinds, and on and on. Wikipedia article on Tokyu Hands and the official website in japanese of course!!

Then we moved on to Loft which is kind of like Tokyu Hands but maybe more housewares oriented? Their official website…. We found lots of goodies at both of them!! After walking and walking and going up and down far too many staircases (in and out of the subways) we headed back to Nisshin.

We went home and met up with Kerry (also nova teacher, now ex-roommate) and went to our favorite favorite restaurant ENYA!!!! We love enya….especially for their $1 mugs of beer…. (see earlier posts for more pics & descriptions) we even convinced mom to try some tasty salmon sashimi. She said it wasn’t too bad… proof:

We ended up going to bed at a rather decent hour… as the next day we were heading to Osaka BRIGHT and early!!! so we packed up our bags and turned in. :-)