The Interim Week

It is the Eve of my departure for Tokyo and I am counting down the hours till my departure. But I've had an amazing, fun filled week as well!

On Monday, my host mother invited me and Austen to join her at her flower arranging class. I know absolutely nothing about flower arranging, and while I know it's a traditional Japanese art, Austen was the one completely excited for the lesson. My Host mother, on our way over to the class, told us that her regular teacher was in Tokyo for the day and so we would be having a substitute teacher. Who apparently spoke no english. My excitement level decreased quite a bit upon hearing this though Austen continued to be optimistic (an interesting role reversal). Upon arriving, my Okaasan went to her desk and started working on some complicated arrangement. Meanwhile, Austen and I walked over to the two places set up for us (clearly marked because there were handouts in english) and waited for the teacher to come over to us. This soft spoken Japanese woman, probably around 30, then started to instruct us on the type of arrangement that we would be creating. Essentially, Japanese flower arranging is all about simplicity. Flower arrangements vary in size and type depending on the type of occasion, the vase or whatever being used, etc. Our task was to do an arrangement of two isoceles triangles (meaning the flowers involved, their stems are arranged in the shape of two triangles). While I didn't always understand what she was saying, with the assistance of the pictures, and her demonstrations, and easy consultation with Austen, we managed to make it through the lesson and create awesome arrangements!

I think I've decided though that I like American flower arranging much better than Japanese flower arranging. While simplicity is good, I like more flowers and less greenery. Additionally, while we were putting together our flower arrangements, our teacher advised us to rip off parts of the large green leaves from the yellow flower branches. I thought this made it look very amateurish (and it did; had she done it I'm sure it would've looked fine), but at the same time, I don't understand why I would want to make the leaves smaller. I'd just rather take the whole leaf off. Not that I'm a connoisseur of flower arranging or anything (haha)! But the adventure ended up being very fun. The only thing that could've made the event better is if the actual teacher hadn't been in Tokyo. My Okaasan showed me a picture of him and he's quite attractive...too bad he just got married (I'm sure to my mother's delight).

After the flower arranging, we came back to the house and had dinner with Kenji. We ate sukiyaki and Austen and I got sooo full. It was delicious! And then we helped Kenji study for his english test that was the next day. Of course, this involved charades and broken Japanese, but it was all so much fun.

On Tuesday, Austen and I decided to visit the little town of Ohara in the morning. Ohara is located 30 minutes north of where I live. Granted, I already live in the northern suburbs of Kyoto. We took a bus from my station and were transported essentially to the boondocks of the northern country. But it was so gorgeous! Of course though, I had just planned on getting us to the town, and I knew what temple we needed to visit. However getting there...I was unprepared for. Fortunately, the bus station had a bus schedule and a map of the area. The map however, was definitely not to scale...we ended up following an Asian tourist group exactly to the Temple we wanted to see! Such good luck. So we spent the day touring the Sanzenin Tendai Temple. While it was busy (which we thought was unusual considering it's in the middle of the week in the morning), we had a wonderful day.

I think the actual win of the trip though was that after Sanzenin Temple, we decided to walk around the area a bit more and stumbled upon a smaller temple, Shorin-in Temple. At first glance, it seems very small, in comparison with its neighbor Sanzenin. It's a simple temple complex, with one central building in the middle of meager gardens. However, upon closer inspection, the temple building is quite fascinating. The best thing was that Austen and I were the only visitors for a good half an hour. Basically, we took of our shoes and wandered around the inside of the temple, which contained a LARGE sculpture of the Buddha Amida and sculptures of other Buddhist deities. The coolest part (excuse me if I sound like a complete nerd at the moment) was that we were able to identify the statues and their significance because of our Religion class! I learned so much in the class and I'm so so happy that I retained it as well. It was super cool to be able to have a conversation about what we were seeing in the Temple.

Later in the evening we met up with other Stanford students who were still here and went to Shabu-Shabu, which is all you can eat meat tabehodai (that was definitely redundant...). Essentially, you have these nabe pots on your table, they have different soups in them, and you dip raw meat into them, wait for it to cook (the soup is basically boiling on top of the hot stove), and eat to your hearts content. It was really good and very fun to hang out with a group of people before a good number shipped off to home.

On Wednesday, Austen, Matt and I went to Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion. When I came to Kyoto in high school, we went to Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion) but not to Ginkakuji. So I was insistent on seeing the temple. While the temple buildings weren't that impressive, the gardens and the view at the top of the hill next to the buildings was worth the 500 yen entry price. It was also nice for the three of us to hang out again as Matt has been rather sick for a long time and it kind of reminded me of the beginning of the quarter.

In the evening, I met up with Chelsea and we decided to go see Prince of Persia. For a video game movie, this movie was AWESOME. I was so impressed by how well the video game transferred to the movie that I hope they continue the series. I really did enjoy it. Granted, it had its corny moments, but on a whole, it's definitely a movie I would go see again and again! It almost had potential to be my favorite movie, though in reality, nothing can touch the perfection that is Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. But yet again, Disney works its magic. After the movie, we went and got ramen and then proceeded to sit in Starbucks for dessert and converse about young adult fantasy novels and the like.

Yesterday, I spent time packing and then met those that were still here for dinner at Shakey's. It was definitely sad to be at Shakey's without the boys, but I still enjoyed the group that was still here. After, we went to hang out by the river and then I made my last train home. Today was pretty uneventful as well. I finished packing in the morning, and then went to Shijo and hung out with Austen for a good bit. I ran into my host brother on the train home and then we and my host mom went out to dinner to this fancy French restaurant. I have to say that the Japanese do French cuisine well. While I'm not intimately familiar with it, I found it to be French without a Japanese twist on it (except for the prawns or whatever that were on the salad...I didn't touch those). All in all it was a pleasant way to spend my last evening with my host family.

Tomorrow I leave on the Shinkansen for Tokyo at 12:30. I'm both excited and nervous. I'm excited for Tokyo but nervous for my internship. Well...I've already fallen down the rabbit hole. I think this time I'm going Through the Looking Glass!