Instead of having Japanese class today, our Japanese teachers decided to take us to a flea market at Kitano Shrine, not far from Doshisha University. While we speculated that the teachers really wanted to just shop instead of teach today, it was very cool to see the streets of the shrine lined with stalls and shops. It sort of reminded me of last week at the festival I went to with my host mom. However, as this was a flea market, people were definitely engaged in perusing the stalls and haggling stall keepers for lower prices for wanted goods. Nothing really piqued my fancy as I traversed through the crowded walkways and passed by the many stalls of ceramics, yukatas, cell phone charms and other trinkets (Mom, you should be proud I didn't collect things for the sake of collecting items). I was more interested in seeing the inner parts of the shrine, which too was crowded. Kitano Shrine houses the Tenjin kami. The Tenjin kami, prior to its institution as a kami, was a wrathful spirit of a deceased member of the Japanese court in 947. Essentially, he was killed in a political plot and the subsequent disasters that the court withstood were attributed to his angry spirit. As a result, they enshrined him as a kami in order to appease the spirit. The shrine itself is very pretty and the lanterns hanging around the kami worship hall are gorgeous and huge. Nonetheless, it was really hot today and the heat combined with the humidity made it very hard to stay outside. So we ended up busing back to school after an hour and a half.
I hung out at the center for the majority of the afternoon today and did homework. It was nice to be in an air conditioned environment. Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the heat and humidity, but I'm feeling a little bit under the weather and so I wasn't exactly keen on doing to much today. Then I decided to venture out in the later afternoon and walked to the post office to drop off postcards and back to school, a forty minute round trip total. After, from about 4:30 to 7:00 my friend and I decided to hang out at the Imperial Palace, walking around the gardens and just chilling. A really low-key but totally fun afternoon. :) Sometimes it's just nice to sit and enjoy some one else's company instead of traveling from place to place being super active.
Upon arriving home, I was greeted with dinner, which was "sukiyaki". It's very hard to describe. It's kind of stir fry and egg and rice...anyway it was SO GOOD. I couldn't really get enough of it and I repeatedly told my host mother that it was DELICIOUS. Hopefully we'll be having it again for dinner soon...
Anyway, this was a short post but I felt the need to communicate today's events. As a note to all, I do study despite my lack of reference to academic activity in this blog. Generally I study Sunday-Wednesday (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after I get home in the evening; Sunday all day). Thursday - Saturday is generally my weekend. I promise I do study despite my desire to have a mental health quarter...
But all in all, a good day. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment