We shall begin at this past Tuesday. It began like any other day, I got to school, took a Japanese quiz, survived the rest of class, and had lunch with my friends. Later that evening, a few of my friends and I were meeting my host mother at her parents house and going to a matsuri (a festival). However, that was about six hours away, so I decided, because it was a very warm day, and I had no desire to study, and I needed to go to Kyoto Eki anyway, I would walk to Kyoto Eki and back. I figured it would take me about 90 minutes to get down there from school, 30 minutes to run my errands, and then 90 minutes to get back. And I would still have time to kill if need be. I definitely tired myself out though with the amount of walking combined with the heat. But, on my way back towards school, I decided to stop off at the Shijo district and do some shopping (I am changing my wardrobe, one article of clothing at a time)! Eventually, I headed back to campus and met up with Matt and Yan at around 5:30, though we had another 30 minutes to kill considering Austen didn't get out of class till 6:00. Finally, we headed out and arrived just in time to see the procession doing the final parade around the neighborhood before heading to the shrine. It was super cool as it passed right in front of my host mom's mother's house!! After, we had a short, quick dinner, speaking mostly in Japanese, and then my friends, my host mom, and I walked over to the shrine. When we got there, the pathways into the shrine were lined with little booths of games and trinkets and the streetways were crowded with people. It looked like a scene out of an anime! We weaved our way through the crowd though, and then watched the portable shrines being carried into the complex. There was shouting and chanting and clapping and the boisterousness and happiness of the event so much reminded me of Stanford band run. Austen was happy to hear this comparison as she's on Axe Committee at school. Anywho, the evening was bunches of fun and needless to say, doing homework after was a complete let down and so difficult that I ended up staying very late because my concentration was so completely diverted.
Wednesday I took a trip out to Kobe via the Shinkansen, so it was only forty minutes from Kyoto to Kobe (local trains I believe it would've been two hours...?). While I didn't get to see much of the actual city, and despite the fact that it was raining (so strange considering the day before there was not a cloud in the sky -- climate change is happening!!), I think I would really like Kobe. It's a port city like Nagasaki, but has more of a feel of San Francisco than anything I've experienced here so far. I spent the majority of my time though at one of the universities in the city, a smaller, medical services centered university. In the course of the afternoon I used a lot of Japanese, understood some complicated stuff, and got to know the director of our Stanford SCTI program better. But by the time I got home, I was completely exhausted, and I still had to study for my Religion class midterm. Positive day though.
Thursday, everyone in religion class was madly studying throughout the day for the midterm that afternoon. I ended up having impromptu review sessions with many of my classmates, which gave me a bit of confidence that I knew the material really well. I could only hope that my study guide didn't miss anything that she had covered in class or on the field trips. But when we took the midterm, I think it went well. It was pretty short and only took me about 30-40 minutes in the hour she gave us. After class though, a group of us decided to go to Shakey's on Teramachi street for all you can drink and eat, and needless to stay we had a hilariously fun night.
The next morning though, I got up bright and early to pack for the weekend. We were off on our Bing Trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima. Half awake, and hurriedly, I stuffed too much into my smaller suitcase and jetted out to the subway, going all the way to Kyoto Eki and finding the right Shinkansen platform. The train ride to Hiroshima was fun as we all sat next to each other and joked around. And when we arrived, we had lunch and headed out to the peace museum. Granted the rest of the afternoon had a somber tone to it, as we toured the peace museum and after spoke with an atomic bomb survivor. While it was my second trip to the museum, the exhibits were still emotionally impacting, so I felt a bit out of it till we got onto the ferry for Miyajima. I think everyone else felt similarly too.
Now, Miyajima is rated the most scenic spot in Japan, and trust me, it definitely lives up to its name. The main attraction of Miyajima is Itsukushima Shrine, with its large torii out on the beach. Upon arriving at the island, we took shuttles to the ryokan we were to be staying at for the night. This ryokan was absolutely gorgeous. The rooms were wide and spacious, they had tea waiting for us in the room, there were yukatas provided, it was located right next to the shrine...oh my goodness it was amazing. Of course, we were told that it was highly encouraged for us to attend dinner in our yukattas. Traditionally, you wear yukatas to sleep in and/or lounge around in after you've showered in the evening. And they're basically like cotton robes. Pause. There is no way I would feel comfortable just wandering around in a public setting wearing only a cotton robe. And no way I'm going to our fancy dinner like that. Even if it is "highly encouraged". Instead, I decided to wear my little black dress and new earrings that I got on my shopping trip on Tuesday. And I wasn't the only one who decided to nix that idea. Most of the girls wore western clothing, and all the guys wore yukatas. It was interesting to see the gender divide in outfits. Dinner was delicious too. We had a ten course traditional meal (think Japanese style, so these are pretty SMALL courses), most of which I ate. There were very few things I didn't touch despite not knowing at all what they were. And at the end of the dinner, a few of the singers in our group put on a little bit of an a capella/karaoke performance. Considering dinner ended at 9:00, we felt that it was just not an option to go to bed just yet. So we all decided to head to the shrine in the night, as it's light up until 11:00. The tide was out so we could go down and walk around the torii. As this was the beach, I decided to go without shoes. Smart decision. Many others went with shoes and regreted it the following day. Basically, we spent the evening out on the beach in warm weather. I love it here.
The next morning was also earlier than any of us would have liked. We met at 9:00, went to the shrine, took some group pictures, had a brief discussion, and then were released. A group of us decided to wander around the main part of the island for a bit before grabbing our luggage from the hotel and heading back to the mainland. I got lots of cute little souvenir gifts and some delicious chocolate thing for my host family. Then we headed back to the hotel, picked up our luggage, shuttled to the ferry, ferried back to Hiroshima and found lunch at Hiroshima Eki. I had this wonderful bowl of ramen :) After, we decided to head to Osaka instead of just going back to Kyoto. So we bought our shinkansen tickets and JUST made the train before having to wait for the next one (literally, we ran for the shinkansen). Literally, everyone passed out on the train, we were all so tired. But when we got to Osaka, we put our stuff in lockers and then began wandering the downtown streets of the city. OMG Osaka is so cool. I don't think the six hours we were there were enough to really explore downtown, let alone see the rest of the city.
Anyway, the main purpose of our trip to Osaka was to experience this city's nightlife, as we had heard so much about it. So at around nine, Austen and I went back to the Eki lockers, retrieved our stuff and proceeded to spend the next hour and a half getting ready in the Eki bathroom (pretty jank but we still managed to do it). After a brief photo session, we then met up with the rest of the group on the bridge and proceeded to Club Pure. Needless to say, the evening was so much fun, though I attribute that to the people I was with mainly and not the environment nor the DJ (who was atrocious -- I could've done a waaay better job). Yes, the people definitely made the night and I had so much fun that I just didn't want it to end. But, inevitably, the club closed at 5am, after which we proceeded to get food at McDonald's and then ride the trains home to Kyoto.
I got home by 8:30 am, showered and then conked out till 2:30pm.
What a wonderful week. :)
I had hoped to hear a little bit about your brief visit/discussion with the bomb survivor. What sort of remembrances did this person tell you about? Did he seem to harbor any ill-will? What losses did this person have personally, i.e. family?
ReplyDeleteAs usual, your blog makes me feel like I'm there with you.
Saroya, what sort of classes do your engineer friends take? Do they get as much opportunity to enjoy Japan as you do? I know you're all taking Japanese, but what do they take? I'd be interested in getting their impressions in case Forrest remains interested in Japan for his own future.
love ya,
Tante