Week in Review

Wednesday was Children's Day ("Kodomo No Hi"). While I had stayed at home all day on Tuesday, I decided I needed to get out of the house for my last day before Golden Week was over and I would have to return to "daily" life (let's be real though, as if anything here is "daily" besides Japanese class...). I planned to leave around 2:30, walk to school, meet up with Nancy and go from there. However, when I went to talk to my host mother about my plans, we eating traditional Children's Day sweets and ended up talking for almost an hour about all sorts of stuff. The sweets were really good too! One of them was a kind of mochi filled with red bean paste (yummy :D ) and the other was just a rice pastry. They were sooo good. :) And it was really fun just to sit and chill with my host mom for a little bit. Then after I made the trek towards school, helped Nancy move herself to her hotel for the night, which was followed up by drinks and then a night on the town. Perfect way to end Golden Week.

Thursday, in Japanese, I found out that my quiz was in fact on Monday instead (lucky me since I literally studied a little bit the night before and a little in the morning. Such a relief, though I ended up having to give an impromptu speech about Golden Week (which was inevitably filled with stumblings and fumblings of vocabulary and grammar). However, class ended a bit early, a pleasant surprise indeed, which resulted in us getting to the cafeteria before the massive hordes of students swarmed to find sustenance in the small hour alloted for lunch between classes. After lunch, while Nancy waited to get the key to her new apartment, I did two things: first, I performed the actions my job as class assistant requires (which meant photocopying handouts for the field trip to Nara on Saturday), and second, I made the epic walk to the post office near school (40-45 min. round trip walking). It was definitely a pleasant walk, though perhaps a bit tiring considering the weather has decided to stay nice and warm (kind of like The Woodlands, Texas in the summer -- though not really hot yet, just warm and humid). Nancy then managed to rope me, Matt, Austen, and Yan into helping her move all her luggage to her new apartment. Of course, this involved finding her apartment in the first place...which took a little while. Luckily though, when we did find it, we realized how close she is to the downtown district! Essentially, this means we now have a place to crash in case we miss the last train so we don't have to stay awake till 5 am...MUAHAHA.

Friday was an interesting day. I headed out for school at about noon, only to walk outside into the POURING rain. I mean...seriously? It was a beautiful, sunny 74 degree day only the day before. What happened? Oddly enough, it wasn't cold rain; it as still high 60s, low 70s. Talk about bipolar to the max. Anyway, my plan to walk to school was foiled because of the significant downpour (and my lack of enthusiasm for getting soaked) so I took the subway to school and hung out in the E40 lab until Austen arrived, upon which we went and got lunch. That afternoon, a small group of us attended a mixer at the Doshisha Women's College from 4-6:30. Now, there were only 10-14 of us and like...60 of them. Personally, I was surprised at the small number of Stanford students that decided to attend, since most of them make a big deal about wanting to meet and make actual japanese friends and use their Japanese. Also, we have a lot of guys on our trip. You'd think that a mixer at a WOMEN'S college would attract them. Apparently not. Their loss; just meant I had more opportunities to make friends and bond with the girls. Which I did. If I had been rusty with my Japanese before the mixer, I was definitely back up to speed after. I talked to soo soo many girls, and exchanged phone numbers with so many of them! Now I have Japanese friends (even if I can't tell them apart in my phonebook...)! It was hilarious though, talking to all the other Stanford students after the mixer. They were all overwhelmed by the massive amount of girls. Most of them felt like they were being attacked. To me, having gone to a girls' school for nine years of my life, felt right at home. Anyway, that was definitely a win.

Today, somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed at eight o'clock so I could catch the nine o'clock subway and meet up with my Religion class for our field trip to Nara. Nara is about an hour away from Kyoto, and is one of the central locations for Buddhism in Japan. At Nara, the Todaji Temple houses the DaiButsu, literally the Great Buddha. It's absolutely magnificent to see. So, Professor Ludvik took us to see the Todaji Temple as well as the large Shinto Shrine also located in the same general area. Lots of walking, lots of pictures, lots of fun. And Professor Ludvik literally seems to know EVERYTHING. Her lectures only got more and more interesting throughout the day, as she would stop us to talk about a certain structure, or the significance of a symbol etc. Side note about Nara: deer walk around freely. Now, that may sound cute, the idea that Nara is a giant petting zoo. Deer are a sacred animal and basically the city of Nara is a deer sanctuary. However, THESE DEER WILL EAT YOU. And when I say eat you, I mean they will pester you constantly if you have food, or appear to have food, and will nibble at you to intimidate you into giving them food. Last time I was at the temple, in high school, a dear ate my map. No joke. After we walked around the temple for a while, Professor Ludvik took us to the Nara Museum, which was showcasing Buddhist artifacts from Japan and China. Soon after, I headed home and decided to stay in for the evening. I spent a lot of time though talking with my host mother though. :)

A bodhisattva statue next to the Great Buddha

I found this sign of the mascot of Nara (a small buddha with antlers...KAWAII!!) -- had to pose with him :)

The Great Buddha (the picture really doesn't do it justice)

I was trying to pose like the Nio (the temple guardian)

Me Feeding the Deer....