As usual I have been horribly negligent about my blog. I think this is actually good thing. The more time I spend not updating, the more time I’m spending out doing fun things! Of course I’ve also been negligent about going out and doing fun things in the fashion I was last semester, but there are also merits to this. Everyday I am finally returning to my HOME in Japan instead of just another stressful social situation. The relationship between my host mother and I has gotten better with every passing month and I am going to be very sad to have to let go of her everyday presence when the time comes to leave Japan. Our house is almost always full of our laughter and jokes.
So I left off at the Byodoin last time…hmm thus I will begin with Nagano! For winter break in February I hopped on the arduous night bus with Becky, Sam, Adam, and Megumi. It takes about eight hours to get there with stops every two hours at rest stops, but the huge blizzard that overtook the once Olympic village ended up making it more like ten. Finally grumpily exiting the bus, we refreshed in the nearest bathroom and had some sandwiches and cups of coffee. We had been on the bus from about twelve the night before until eight or nine in the morning. The man who runs the inn where we stayed then picked us up. There is no public transportation to the inns, only the hotspots in the town, and so each inn has a little van in which they pick up and drop off their guests right at the slopes. Not only this, but they also provide the wear and gear for the slopes plus breakfast and lunch, meal tickets included for lunch at the either the base or the summit of the mountain. All this for about thirty thousand yen. This is about three hundred dollars, no bad at all! Plus the food was delicious. Anyway so we ladies stayed in a lovely, cozy room with three beds tucked away under a slanted ceiling and about four tatami mats beyond that to sit on. We had a wonderful heater and heaps of blankets to keep us warm.
We crazy kids actually went out the day we arrived, not wanting to waste any precious time despite how tired we were! We threw in the towel early, but headed out bright and early the next morning. After lunch, however, I fell and hit my head pretty hard and so had to trek all the way to the hospital. They determined that I had a concussion, but nothing drastic, and so I was to keep out of the bath and away from alcohol for a few days. This is lame on three accounts. The first is that the bath at the inn was absolutely heavenly and I’m sad to have missed out on it. The second is obvious. The third is that I was unable to go out snowboarding the third day! Alas, I’ll never be Shawn White despite my intrinsic connection to him based on the fact that we’re both gingers.
We hopped back on the night bus and I spent the whole day dead sleeping on my face. The next day Julia, Jenna, and I headed out with our Antiquity in Modern Japan professor to check out ancient tombs in the Nara basin. The first one we went to is an unexcavated keyhole tomb where we picked up bits of clay pots, which, at the time of its erection, surrounded it on several tiers. Afterwards we biked off to a tomb hidden away inside a bamboo grove by an organic strawberry farm. It was an absolutely magical experience! We entered the bamboo grove unhindered and the sounds of the town around us melted away. About forty feet in we came to a small jizo statue with a scant few offerings and behind it a small square hole, not two feet by three feet. This, our professor explained, was where it got messy. Skirting the statue, we proceeded to crawl, feet first, into the tomb. Once inside we produced our flashlights and began to explore. There is a stone sarcophagus with a crack in it just large enough for someone my size to squeeze through and then lay comfortably inside. It was a little eerie being inside the tomb, dust the only thing remaining, of someone centuries dead. I, of course, couldn’t help but hum the Indiana Jones theme.
The next big event is my birthday! It doesn’t much matter here, but I’m finally twenty-one. Hurrah! Not that I’m a huge lush or anything, but having a glass of wine with dinner out is no longer an affair. The night of my birthday we went bowling, an event during which I bowled over one hundred three out of four times. This is quite rare as I’m somewhat pathetic at bowling. Birthday luck, I think! Afterwards I grabbed ramen with a few friends before heading to our usual fare, Milan’s. There we celebrated with another kid from AKP as well as his girlfriend Akane, whose birthday is the same as mine, and all of her friends. It was somewhat overwhelming in such a small space, but we had good fun. My friends bought me and Jenna, whose birthday is the day after mine, some lovely cake slices.
Two days later I had a few friends over for a feast that my host mom prepared (picture above). There they gave me a lovely wallet from Angelic Pretty, one of my favorite gothic lolita designers! We ate until we were disgustingly full—I couldn’t move at all that evening—and watched Shrek. All this we did whilst sitting around the kotatsu. I think it was to make up for the Japanese childhood I never had. Anyway my host mom produced a delicious chocolate and strawberry cake made out to both me and Jenna, which we could barely eat after the feast plus ice cream and tea.
Soon after the plumb blossoms bloomed and so we trekked off to Kitano Tenmangu, a lovely temple, which is full of plum trees. The same day was also the monthly temple market and so it was also full of people! Though it had been somewhat cloudy in the morning, the sun came out and brightened the cute little blossoms for stunning pictures! I tried some new festival food, these savory fish shaped bread snacks full of warm custard. Delicious!
Two weeks ago my program hosted a group trip to Ise. I think I annoyed everyone by playing “what am I thinking of” a little loudly on the bus, but it certainly passed the time on the way! Our first stop was a ninja village, which is alas less exciting than it sounds. We DID get to check out one rather interesting building in which there is a rotating door like in Scooby Doo, hidden staircases, a drop down ceiling to crush unwanted visitors, hidden hallways with escape routes through wall scrolls, and hiding holes under the fire pits. Excellent! Afterwards we went to the husband and wife rocks. See the picture. Um. Anyway there were a lot of frogs statues there! If you buy a little frog charm there and put it in your wallet, money will come to you. This is because kaeru can mean frog but also to return, so your money returns!
That night we stayed in an absolutely breathtaking hotel in Ise. The staff and professors stayed in the main building, but we were all put in wonderful little cottages with lofts, comfortable porches, and gorgeous wooden everything. There was also a pool and an outdoor bath. I only made it to the pool, but it was great to sink into and float in the water as well as enjoy the sauna and hot tub! The buffet was also excellent, the dining room boasting a stunning view of the mountains and bay, which the hotel was nestled into.
The next morning we trudged over to breakfast before heading out for more adventures. We went to Ise Jingu, first to the inner complex and then the outer, which is to the sun goddess Amaterasu. When we went to pray to her, a most incredible thing happened. Waiting in the hustle and bustle of the crowd pushing to give homage to the goddess, the large cloth blocking the rest of the shrine from view billowed up in a gust of wind and presented the long path of white stones, flanked by black ones, all damp from the rain. Directly to the left of the wooden frame of where one prays stood a Shinto priest in pristine white Heian garb and a tall black hat. It was certainly a sight to behold, and the crowd certainly thought so as well, everyone exclaiming “whoa” in unison!
Any finally! On Sunday I headed off to Osaka with Becky and Patrick to see my English language student perform Rakugo. Rakugo is traditional Japanese comedy theater in which the actor sits with a towel and a fan as props. They act out all the parts in a play, changing from character to character in the blink of an eye. They used the fan as chopsticks, a calligraphy brush, a Buddhist ceremonial item, a spatula, and a sword. This I found most interesting. It is simply the manner in which the actor holds the object which determines how it is to be interpreted by the audience.
My parents came this week to visit and so I'll be posting about that sometime in the next millennium!
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