I'm Coming Home!!

The last few days have been a whirlwind of traveling/getting up at the crack of dawn. I went to the Fushimi Inari shrine, a stunning shrine dedicated to the Shinto god of rice. There are four kilometers of torii gates line up one after another, almost touching in places. The wooden gates are replaced every ten years, by corporate sponsorship - the company that pays for the replacement has its name engraved on black on the torri gate in question.

After one last dinner out with Yashi, it was time to leave Kyoto. I woke up early the next morning to go to the Toji flea market, a not-to-be-missed monthly event that happened to coincide with my departure date. The market was held on the Toji temple grounds, with stall after stall peddling everything imagineable. Lots of secondhand kimonos that were awfully tempting except for how HEAVY they are! I picked up some smaller, lighter things, as well as the best mochi I've ever eaten, made by this guy:

His wife was helping him at the stand, and didn't speak any English. She asked me in Japanese where I was from and I responded "San Francisco." She chatted happily away in Japanese while I smiled and nodded and feigned comprehension. Five minutes later, her husband asked if I was from America and you should have heard her laughingly scold him for not paying attention! It transcended the languaged barrier as she shook her head and clucked at him: "San Francisco!" They were an adorable couple - and their peanut powder-dusted mochi was pillowy-soft. Oishi!

I then hauled my backpack through the now torrential rain downpour to the Kyoto station for my second Shinkansen ride. A mere two hours later, I arrived in Tokyo, dropped my backpack off, and hit the streets. I had bought a ticket back in Kyoto for the sumo tournament, and was eager to see my first match. I wasn't sure if I would like it, but it was AMAZING! The stadium was immense yet sold out, and the thrill of the crowd was electrifying. The actual wrestling only lasted seconds but the crowd would be on the edge of its collective seat for that time, roaring as the wrestlers surged first to one side of the ring, then to the other, before one finally stepped out. Or fell out, as happened more than once, resulting in a 400 lb wrestler falling on some observer in the coveted first row of ringside seats.

This morning I woke up early again to see the Tsukiji fish market. Row after row of stalls peddling their fish, eel, octopi, scallops - all so fresh that there's no fishy smell. In the back of the market are the auctions, where immense fish are laid out and examined by prospective buyers. It was an incredibly hectic atmosphere, both at the auction and in the aisles between stalls, as men on motorized carts and pushing wheelbarrows ran up and down the aisles delivering fish to their buyers.

It's been a great trip, but I'm ready to head home. I live for the airport in two hours, and have a fun fun fun eleven hour flight to look forward to!

Sightseeing

We've done our share of sightseeing in Kyoto

Here we are at the Golden Pavilion

And at the famous Zen rock garden, considered one of the finest examples of Japanese art. I'm not going to lie: I didn't get it.

My favorite part of the temple with the rock garden was the amazing shave ice! Almost (but not quite) as good as Waiola's. Mmmmm...it's making me drool just thinking about it. No ice cream at the bottom though. =(

We also did a day trip to the towns of Kibune and Kurama (about an hour from Kyoto).

We got off the train at Kibune and hiked up the one lane mountain road into the town proper.

Once there, we visited the local shrine to the God of Water and then appropriately had lunch at one of the many restaurants built over the river.

From there, we began our hike up into the mountain, through the lush pine forest, wending our way from one hidden shrine to another.

The temple hike culminated with a visit to the Kurama temple, high up in the mountain surrounded by maple and cherry trees. It will look amazing in a couple of weeks when the trees change color, but until then it's just pretty.

We made our way back down the mountain to the little one-road town of Kurama.

We walked a little way up the road to the Kurama onsen - where you can soak in an outdoor bath surrounded by the amazing mountain scenery. It was very relaxing and serene, especially when it started raining a little bit while we were soaking. Relaxed and content, we made our way back into Kyoto.

The People of Kyoto

Jana and I have been in Kyoto for several days now - I love this city! It's a big city, but seems less impersonal than Tokyo. Sort of like San Francisco vs New York (at least for me). It could also be that I feel this way because our hostel is AWESOME! We're staying at IchiEnSou, a guesthouse in the heart of Gion (Geisha district). We walked out our front door the other day and within five minutes ran into a maiko (appentice geisha):

As soon as she emerged, people ran down the street and crowded around her taking pictures. She quickly got into a waiting taxi, and still people ran up and tried taking her picture though the taxi window. It was like she was Britney Spears or something, and we were the paparazzi. I tried to take an unobtrusive picture from across the street but felt guilty for being one of "those people."

Two minutes later we ran across two more geisha, this time in a narrow alley so they were not swarmed with people with cameras.

Besides the location, part of the appeal of IchiEnSou is the owner Yashi. It's a small guesthouse, only 10 beds total, and he runs it like every guest is a new friend. It feels like we're staying in somebody's home as opposed to being in a soul-less corporate hostel.

Here's Yashi making us dinner (on the right):

They are takoyaki, normally made with squid but Yashi made a batch without the seafood for me. Oishii! (Delicious)

This was actually my second dinner of the night, because earlier Jana and I had gone to a small hole-in-the-wall resturant. We thought it was a Japanese restaurant but it turns out they mostly made Korean food. The owner however, a wonderful woman who knew some English, was kind enough to make us vegetable tempura, some sort of Korean vegetable pancake, and some fried chicken for Jana. We had a great time talking to her - she would start off speaking very slowly in very basic English mixed with a little Japanese and was very patient with repeating what she said until we understood her, and waiting for us to look words up in Jana's Japanese phrasebook to answer her. As she got more and more involved in the conversation though, she kept dropping more and more Japanese in, until she was speaking almost completely in Japanese. At one point I think she was asking us if it was raining in Koyasan while we were there, but it could just as easily been a question about the leaves changing color or if we went to a prayer ceremony.

The chef is standing on the right - he made awesome tempura!

The night before we had also eaten in a small hole-in-the-wall. This one was our first experience together eating in a restaurant with no English menu, no pictures of food to point at. Just pure Japanese. (btw, thanks Mom and Dad for all the nights playing mah-jong - knowing my kanji for numbers has been very helpful!). The restarant was just big enough for a narrow counter/grill that ran the length of the restaurant and 6 or 7 stools that sat in front of it. Jana led the way with her phrasebook, sat down in a chair and said "Nihongo ga hanesemasen" (I don't speak Japanese) and pointed in her phrasebook to the kanji for "Please decide for me." She then pointed at me and I said "Watashi wa bejitarian des" (I'm a vegetarian) and then again pointed to "Please decide for me."

The chef was clearly stumped. He retreated to the end of the counter and conferred with the three people sitting there, clearly regulars. They went back and forth quite a bit before coming back and taking a good look at us. He said "Noodles?" We nodded our heads vigorously with lots of "Hai, hai!" He then proceeded to make us some sort of egg pancake dish.

Jana's had some sort of meat mixed in with the batter, while mine was looking pretty good - until he sprinkled bonito flakes over everything. I ate it anyway (and it was pretty good), picking my way around the cuttlefish he had thrown in for good measure. The Japanese apparently really don't think of seafood as meat.

We had a good chat with the other patrons at the bar too. They were immensely entertained with Jana's phrasebook and once again quite impressed that we were from San Francisco. The guy on the right is a psychotherapist, the couple at the end are a cosmetics salesman and I think a model (didn't quite get the Japanese word), and on the left is our stoic chef.

Koya-san, Part II

We woke up early to attend the dawn prayer ceremonies. We were quietly led into a dim candle-lit hall, and gestured to kneel in a line near one wall. Three monks knelt in their voluminous robes in front of an altar, chanting and droning in low hummed tones, broken by the occasional rumble of a drum beat or the rattle of their cymbal-like instrument. Clouds of incense wafted up from a dish in the center. It was very hypnotic to listen to them, but after half an hour I couldn't feel my legs anymore from kneeling and had to switch to sitting with my knees to the side. The Japanese among us made it the entire time kneeling, although the middle aged woman next to me had trouble standing at the end.

Jana and I went back to our room to await breakfast only to have a monk burst in saying "Hyaku!" (Hurry!) we quickly followed him to find the rest of our group leaving the temple to go to an adjacent shrine. There, we once again knelt, this time in front of a fire pit. One monk chanted and beat on a drum while a second monk knelt in front of the pit and carefully built a tier of wooden sticks. With great ceremony he lit a fire brand and set it under the tier where the flames licked the wood above it...and then gradually died out. He had to quickly light another brand, which this time did the trick. I think this second monk was a novice - he wore an orange robe and was constantly referring to the book in front of him, which we at first thought was a prayer book but eventually decided was an instruction manual ("Drop 3 ladle-fuls of water on flames. Add 1 bunch of leaves. Toss five pinches of powder into flames. Repeat.") It was a pretty neat ceremony though and I'm glad we didn't miss it!

We returned to our room to find breakfast awaiting us:

Again, delicious!

Here's a couple more shots of our temple:

After our meal we set out to explore the cemetary in Koyasan. Kobo Dashi is interned in a mausoleum in the mountain, and it is said that he is only at rest and will someday awaken and take his disciples to enlightenment with him. Everybody of course wants to be nearby for when that happens, so cemetary real estate near Kobo Dashi's tomb goes at a premium. The cemetary extends for quite some ways, and there are even corporate plots that current employees visit and leave business cards at. At the end of the path is Toro-do (Hall of Lanterns) that has thousands upon thousands of glowing lanterns hanging in tidy rows up and down the ceiling and in racks extending the length and width of the hall. Some are said to have been kept glowing since the 12th century. Behind this sits Kobo Dashi's tomb - pretty plain after the Hall of Lanterns.

Our tour of Koyasan complete, we were ready to escape the constant drizzle of rain and head back down the mountain: to Kyoto! All in all, I felt like my time in Koyasan was similar to Cinque Terre in Italy: in some ways the most authentic experience of Japanese life, although always with the knowledgge that it is still quite the tourist destination. I enjoyed it immensely however and am really glad we splurged a little bit and spent the night on the mountain. It was an amazing meditative experience and a great glimpse into how another people live.

Koya-San

Koya-San (or Mt Koya) is a holy mountain for Shingon Buddhism - it is where their religious founder Kobo Dashi set up their main temple, where he is buried, and where he is expected to rise again (more on that later). There are 108 temples high up on this mountain, and fortunate for us, many let you spend the night and participate in their morning prayers.

It took two train rides, a cable car and a bus, but we finally made it up to the top of lushly green Mt Koya and checked in with Eko-in temple. We were shown to our room, in the traditional style with beautiful tatami mats and sliding screen doors. Our room had a little parlor with sliding doors that opened out onto the temple garden. By then it had started to rain - it was the most peaceful thing to sit looking at the rain drip down into the garden, the only sound being the pit-pat of rain drops and the shuffle of the monks' slippered feet in the hallways.

They had left us a pot of tea and a small tea snack cake (tasted sort of like a mooncake). We drank it while kneeling at our low table in the middle of our room.

Then, while Jana took a nap, I set out to explore small mountain town (a trend had already emerged in our trip). A few sights from my walk:

These were a line of torii gates leading up to a small isolated temple.

I was entertained by this monk in his rain suit walking two dogs in their rain suits (they look like they're wearing pajamas!)

I got back to the temple in time for dinner, which the monks brought to our room. It was the most amazing vegetarian feast, full of unusual but delicious flavors and textures. It was incredible, and I was full to bursting at the end of the meal.

After a bit of a digestion rest, we took a traditional Japanese bath (shower first, then soak in large pool of hot water). When we returned to our room, we found the monks had cleared away our dishes and set up our futons.

Completely relaxed by our bath, we crawled under the cloud-soft comforters and fell into a peaceful sleep listening to the rain drip-drip down into the garden.

Osaka

I woke up at 6 am (still on California time and waking up early every morning) on Sept 15, and since I wasn't expecting to meet Jana for another couple of hours, I went for a walk around sleepy Osaka. Turns out there's not a lot of people out at 6 am, which made it very peaceful as I poked around the residential streets near my hostel.

This resulted in a set I like to call "Cats of Osaka" (original title, yes?)

When I got back to my hostel, Jana was already waiting outside - absolutely haggard from an 8 hour bus ride that she didn't sleep a wink on. We snuck her up to my room and she promptly crashed on my bed while I ventured out again. I walked pretty much straight across the city center, but didn't see too much of interest except for a very cool temple tucked away between two office buildings.

And a cool park where people were relaxing on this national holiday (Respect the Aged Day)

It was about time to check out of the hostel, so I took the train back up and woke Jana up so we could head out. We hopped on the train to what would be my favorite part of the trip so far: Koya-san!

A Tale of People

I gave my talk this afternoon, chatted with some other conference attendees about my research and then had to run to the Nagasaki train station to catch my train to Osaka.

While I was buying my ticket to Osaka, I overheard an American voice in the counter next to mine. Turns out it belonged to Ethan, a Masters student from Florida (by way of Germany) who within 5 minutes of meeting wanted me to watch his bag while he went to the bathroom. Luckily for him I a) am not the thieving type and b) had enough crap to carry without stealing his luggage too. We rode as far as Hakata together before he went on to Beppu and I caught my train to Osaka.

My train turned out to be a Shinkansen, also known as the bullet train. And boy did it go fast! The countryside passed by in a blur, at least what parts of it I could see since the sun had set by then.

I made it to the Osaka station and promptly put on my "confused American tourist" look (a look that does not take much acting). A nice young man named Yudichi took the bait,and lucky enough for me, turned out to be going to the same subway station I was going to. I obediently followed him from station to subway to station while we made small talk in a mixture of English/Japanese/mime. He was kind enough to lead me straight to my hostel's door. Where there was this pile of slippers:

And a sign saying "Shoes are strictly forbidden."

The hostel's nice enough, although I'll only be here long enough to rest my head before moving on to Koya-San tomorrow. As far as I know, Jana is currently barreling towards Osaka on a night bus from Tokyo, and we plan to meet up tomorrow morning. I'm sharing a room with Erica, a JET teacher originally from Guam, who thankfully shares my desire to keep our room's air conditioning set at a cool 20 deg C - 'cuz it is HOT and MUGGY in Osaka!

Bookstore

I blew through the book I had brought with me by now and have a long train ride ahead of me tomorrow. So this evening I hit up the biggest bookstore in Nagasaki in hopes of picking up an English-language magazine to help me pass the time.

I had heard English-language reading material were expensive in Japan, but OH MY GOD! Trade paperbacks were 1000 yen ($10) and up and magazines were even worse. 2300 yen ($23) for a copy of GQ! 2000 yen ($20) for TIME magazine! My plan had been to buy a magazine for the train and then ditch it once I got to Osaka but at those prices I felt I should be able to trade it for dinner...or somebody's first born. Likewise, I was going to trash the book I finished to save weight in my pack but now I think it's probably barter-able at my next hostel.

I did wind up buying a new paperback (a bargain 1030 yen) after hours agonizing at the rack. I wanted to make sure I got something really really good 'cuz my budget won't be able to handle another book purchase this trip.

Corn Soup

Mmm. My life has been revolutionized by the discovery that I can buy packets of instant corn soup from the local quickie mart. Just add hot water! I am no longer at the mercy of the hotel breakast buffet to provide me with my corn soup fix.

Guess what I'm eating right now? That's right, corn soup.

In other news, it's raining right now in Nagasaki. Perfect afternoon to sit by the window with a newspaper and a cup of warm soup.

Earlier today I had a bit of an upset stomach (not corn-related) and had to go to the pharmacy. Pharmacies here do not carry pepto bismol and are apparently the only place in Japan where they do not speak English. I think I did a pretty good pantomime, and was given something by the pharmacist. The instruction sheet comforts me that it is a pepto-like substance, and not, for example, hemorrhoid cream.

Cultual Note

So something that I haven't mentioned before are my trials and tribulations with the hotel bathroom. At the hostel, there was a standard shower stall set up. The bathroom here at the hotel looks pretty Western: toilet and shower in same room, deep bathtub and handheld shower head with two hook positions, one high and one low. The bathtub has a shower curtain.

The first night I took a shower, I had the showerhead at the high position, because I couldn't get my head under it at the low position. Unfortunately, since I'm blind without my glasses, I didn't realize that the water was hitting the back wall of the shower - and not falling into the tub! Because of the tub design, there was actually a lip that the water was catching on, causing the water to drip all over the floor. Being totally blind without my glasses, it took me a while to notice. When I realized it, I moved the showerhead to the lower position, but not before my pants got totally soaked from where I had left them on the floor.

Fast forward to night two. Now on the lower position, I thought everything was fine and dandy until I realized that unless the shower head was positioned exactly right, it STILL dripped water all over the floor! How stupid was the person who designed this shower??

EXCEPT, then I did some reading. And..it turns out you're supposed to flood the floor! The Japanese take a shower first before getting into a bath to soak. I knew this was true for public baths, but it turns out to be true for private baths as well. There's a drain in the floor of the bathroom specifically for this purpose, and the floor is recessed by an inch compared with the floor outside the bathroom (and here I thought the floor dried fast after I flooded it because of all the towels I had thrown down). The hotel bathroom IS oddly designed, since in a traditional bathroom you would never have the toilet in the same room as the shower.

Anyway, that was my cultural lesson of the day.

Slice of Japanese news

Just a tidbit from this morning's newspaper. I thought it somewhat revealing about the deep honor/shame culture here:

Asai rice miller resold pesticide-tainted rice to rice brokers, in violation of its contract with the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry. It is possible the resold rice was used in edible products. When asked about the issue by reporters, Asai President Toshinori Asai said "I resold it because we had cash-flow problems. I'm really sorry." Twenty minutes into the encounter, he lowered his head and said "I'm feeling bad," before terminating the interview and returning to his company's office.

Anyway, that's what I was reading in the paper while eating my corn soup from my breakfast buffet this morning (who knew the Japanese loved corn soup so much in the morning??)

Off for another day of science talks

I'm Alive!

Apparently there was a 6.9 earthquake off of Hokkaido this morning...luckily I was at the very other end of the country by then. Didn't feel a thing.

Got about 2 hours of sleep last night 'cuz I had to be up to catch the first subway to Haneda airport to make my fight to Nagasaki. I was a little worried about the timing (first train: 5 am, 45 min ride to Haneda, plane departure at 6:40) but it turns out that Haneda airport is 1) tiny and 2) super efficient. I was sitting in the waiting area with about 30 min to spare. The waiting area looked like a bus depot...because it essentially was one. Buses parked outside the gate to take us to our plane, which was waaaay out on the tarmac. I felt like a rock star to walk up the stairs into the plane.

Our pilot apparently had career delusions as well - he flew like a race car driver. The acceleration for take off literally threw me back into my seat, and he banked turns like he was doing the Indy 500. Even when we landed, the plane's braking threw my bag off of the seat next to me. I did get to see Mt Fuji from the plane though, so that was cool.

I found an appropriate bus to take me into Nagasaki proper, which dropped me off in some random depot. Luckily I had printed out a map with kanji of my hotel where the conference was being held, and when I showed it to a policeman, he directed me to a taxi. I hopped in, showed the taxi driver my map, and he took off...and drove two blocks around the corner.

Oh well, I'm here now, and it's nice having a room that I don't share with five other people. Staying awake through seven hours of science talks was a little rough on two hours of sleep, but five cups of coffee got me through it. Now I'm back to the age old question:

Food or sleep?

Oh those crazy Japanese (and Taiwanese)

Lydia and I decided to go to an authentic Japanese sidewalk restaurant for dinner.

The woman running the establishment was very welcoming for us to come sit down...and then practically shoved her son over to our table (over his vigorous protests) to serve us, as very clearly he was the only English-speaker in the establishment. We ordered some light plates (it was somewhat like a tapas bar, but with Japanese food of course)

We noticed down the table from us there was something of a lively commotion forming as some Japanese business men and two Taiwanese traveler were proceeding to communicate in broken English and becoming progressively drunker. We didn't think much of it until suddenly the table shifted with the two parties moving into the table right next to us.

"Where you from?" one Japanese man suddenly turned and asked Lydia.

"Austria"

"Ahh, Australia!"

"No, Austria. Near Germany."

"Yes, Austraila. Good good, and you?"

"America. California."

"Ahhh, America! She is from America! Surf! I surf!" complete with surfing pantomime

And suddenly we were part of the party. They bought drinks (sake and tea) and plates of food for us and were incredibly eager to practice their English.

At one point, while Lydia was trying to explain what Austrian dumplings were, I was oddly called upon to use my limited food-related Chinese. "They're like siu mai," I said. Which, even odder, the Japanese understood but the Taiwanese did not. The Japanese had to write out the kanji for it before they understood. "Ohhh, Hong Kong food! Sow mai!" I then had to explain to Lydia what siu mai were and how they really weren't like dumplings at all but close enough for our purposes.

The night ended with the business men (turns out they work as safety engineers overseeing the frozen food industry) heading out, and a very drunk Ruby (one half of the Taiwanese couple) proclaiming her love of Lydia and me and how dare we leave her and Tokyo tomorrow. She then insisted on paying for our meal, hugged the restaurant hostess and staggered off into the night with her boyfriend.

Whirlwind tour

Woke up at 6 am this morning and decided to hit the pavement. After filling up on the hostel's cheap all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (where I discovered a love for instant corn soup), I hit it off with an Austrian girl named Lydia and we deided to bum around together. And by "bum around" I mean walk pretty much nonstop for 10 hours. First stop: the Meiji Jingu shrine. It's tucked away in the middle of a serious forest right in the heart of metropolitan Tokyo. And that forest is DEAFENING. A million cicadas or other similar noise-making insect were going nonstop. Other than that, it was all very peaceful and serene. =)

Then off to Shinjuku, land of hustle and bustle. After some very confused wandering around (and once again being helped by more than our fair share of helpful Japanese business men) we found our way to the Tokyo Munincipal Government Office. At first we couldn't find the way inside but we managed by following some men in suits who clearly knew where they were going. On the 45th floor of TMG is a fantastic observation deck...I didn't realize until going up there how Tokyo just goes on and on forever. It is just an immense city.

Then we headed to the Hama-Rikyu Gardens to await our water bus ride back to our hostel. They were the first place we paid an entrance fee to all day, and were quite beautiful (as well as being bloody hot).