Lol!  I better post what I did today too before I head off to Okinawa.  Sorry about the last post.  There were a lot of run-on sentences and repeated words.  It was 2 a.m. though.

Today I got up very early, turned off my alarm, and went back to sleep.  ;)  Got up a little later and went to get all the paper work figured out.  I got money!  Hehehehe...my insurance has a refund system where I pay so much a month and they deposit some of it back in a bank account I have here in Kyoto.  I haven't checked that bank account all semester, so I went and withdrew whatever was in there.  Then I went an returned my Co-Op card to the school and got back the deposit you're required to put on it.  And I won the lottery!  One of those things is not true. :P

Afterwards I took a bus to the Lower Kamo Shrine, which is actually very far north in Kyoto.  But whatever, right?  @_@  It was very...um....different?  It was definitely not a hot-spot for tourists (though I think we've passed some of the more major tourist seasons at this point?).  In fact, I'm not sure if I saw another foreigner there unless there were some Koreans or Chinese (sorry for the stereotype, but I can't tell them apart).  It was very quiet and had very few people, and as I didn't know where I was going, I felt awkward wandering around from building to building, trying to figure out where I could get a brochure on the shrine's history and where I would get my book signed.

After walking the area, I went back down to the road and wandered around looking for a bus stop.  Instead  I found the "real" entrance to the shrine, or rather, the one that you're supposed to enter through.  The other one is right where the bus stop for Lower Kamo Shrine is, which is frustrating because if you're supposed to enter the other way to feel the majesty of the temple, it ruins the effect.

Not that the effect wasn't ruined anyway.  I think there's a festival or something going on there today.  The entrance to the shrine is actually a very long path through a "forest" (it's in the middle of the city, so I don't know if it qualifies as a real forest?  Lots of trees, yes...) which eventually leads to the Torii Gate guarding the shrine.  But as I was walking, food and game vendors were setting up their stalls for the day.  There were cars everywhere!

Afterwards I headed off to Ginkakuji.  I've already been there once before, but if you keep your ticket, you get to go in again as many times as you please.  I wanted to get my book signed since I forgot it the last time, but I did give the gardens another once over just to see if anything awed me again.  The forest did, but it was too hot to be awed much.  The man who signed my book was very slow and precise about his signature, which was nice.  I like it when people put care into things.

On my way back to the bus stop I met an Italian who asked me where the best spots in Kyoto were.  But he wanted all the areas around Ginkakuji, and my mind blanked at that.  I should've pulled out my book to remember where I've been, but most of those places were in other cities or on the other side of Kyoto, so it wouldn't have helped anyway.

It took a bit of a bus ride to get from Ginkakuji to the Upper Kamo Shrine, but man! it was worth it.  Maybe it's because it was later and no so hot, or maybe it's because of the entrance to the shrine, but I really enjoyed myself here.  Between the first Torii Gate of the shrine and the second is a huge field of grass that's supposed to relax you as you walk through it.  Shinto believes in letting nature be nature, so the grass wasn't manicured or anything.  It was just a huge field of overgrown grass.  It reminded me of home.  ;)  No, seriously, I got a touch of nostalgia upon entering the field, and so I think that's why I liked the shrine immediately.

A brook runs throughout the shrine, which was also very nice.  There were shaded spots where you could sit and listen to it run by.  I particularly liked this one spot where there was a small waterfall and you could hear the water crashing over the rocks.  I sat there and thought for awhile, partially because I was tired and needed to zone out, and partially because it was a good place to zone out.

I met a guy there who studied at Benedictine University in Chicago, and we had a small chat before I wandered off to find the needed brochure and signature.  The shrine wasn't all that huge, though, so it didn't take me long to be done and out of there.  Like the Lower Kamo Shrine, the Upper Kamo Shrine wasn't full of tourists, though I saw other foreigners while I was there.  So most of the day was very quiet.

Um, got back and slept, slept, slept.  Need to meet with Anne and Bess about Okinawa tomorrow.  I don't think I'll post pictures unless I get really enthused about it later tonight.  I didn't take much pictures because most of the captivating stuff was the nature part, and it's hard to take good nature shots without a reaaaaaaally nice camera (at least I can't seem to ever get it right).  I also don't really have a lot of pictures.  I guess I'm one of those people that only takes pictures when I really get enchanted by something because compared to other people, I just don't seem to have as many.

There are four new entries for tonight. You'll want to start with "What haven't I been doing?" on July 26th if you want these to make sense.

So yesterday...or rather, since it's 2 a.m. here, Tuesday, I went to Nara! Wee! Nara is a very old city and is either the first capital of Japan or one of the very first. I don't remember which and don't care to look it up. Because of this, it has a lot of temples and is a big tourist attraction (of course, most of the temples are new buildings based off old designs because fires burned the originals down). Nara is also a very countrified town. It is indeed a city with hugely buildings and such, but much of it is a park or several parks and burial mounds and the like. It's nice because most of the tourist attractions worth seeing are located in one area that takes only about an hour to walk around (as Abby accidentally ended up walking around most of it).

I got up early-ish because Emily said to get to Todaiji by 9:30 to miss the crowds and have a peaceful time of it. I totally blew that plan out of the water. I got to the train station by 8:30, had to go down to Kyoto Station, got on the train to Nara at 8:50, and got to Nara by around 10:15. This was because I got on the local train instead of the fast train, and the local train makes EVERY stop between Kyoto and Nara whereas the fast train only makes some stops. I was highly confused because I asked a conductor if the next train coming was going to Nara, and he said yes, but that the fast train arrived, and I really, really thought I heard him say, at 10 a.m. Considering it was 8:50 a.m., I didn't think the local train was a bad option considering the fast train still takes 40 minutes. But looking at the schedule on the way home (when I figured out how to read it), I couldn't figure out how it would be an hour wait for the fast train.

In any case, I ended up ditching plans to make it to any temples before they got busy and just went. This was a good plan since it was hot and I hadn't brought a map with me. Luckily there was a tourist information center at the train station, so I got a map for free. The map, of course, was crummy, and only served to help me get somewhere if I knew kinda where I was in the first place. It didn't have the names of any local streets on it, only the big streets, which is bad because I immediately got lost in the local streets by not making a turn. But Nara is such a tourist attraction that once I got to Nara park, my map was hardly needed. Just look for a sign, "Oh, that place looks interesting," and head in that direction. So many signs! I did still managed to get turned around a lot at first in their deer parks, though, but I'm directionally challenged.

Speaking of deer parks, they weren't kidding when they said Nara was famous for its deer. Tame deer were everywhere! I should qualify tame, of course. If you have food, they will approach you (or those deer snacks all the vendors in Nara sell). They don't shy away from you much, but if you walk directly towards them, they don't like it a lot. And if you try to touch the male's antlers (which I did not; I saw another person try), the bucks will lower their heads and let you know what they will do with those antlers if you try again.

These deer, btw, are not Illinois deer. The bucks were waist high on me. The whole area smells like a farm because of the animals, though, but it is kinda nice to see so much "wildlife" as you walk through the area. They're actually called Sika deer and are considered messengers of the gods, which is probably why they have been allowed to roam the area until they became tame (sorta like monkeys in other countries).

I first found Kofukuji temple, which I didn't really have to enter (temples cost so much to enter if there's not much special inside), so I just got my book signed and headed off. The whole book signing thing is less about what I saw and more about where I've been. Plus, I just like the beautiful hand work. So to each her own, eh? The woman who signed my book at Kofukuji did a really nice job too. Like, she was all cursive and it doesn't even look like letters. It's one of my favourites in the book. I wandered a bit and found Todaiji temple, which I did enter.

Todaiji is gorgeous. I couldn't figure out why at first, and then I realized. Todaiji has grass! And not only does it have grass, but it's perfectly manicured grass so that even in the terrible heat of the day (and it was something terrible...I would've enjoyed my trip more if it hadn't been so terribly hot and sunny), it was beautiful and just wanted to be run around on by my bare feet. Of course, I wasn't allowed to do that, but I really, really wanted to.

Todaiji is home to a huge image of Vairocana Buddha that is 14.98 meters (um, that's 49.15 feet) tall. It's very, very big. It also houses two of the scariest guardians I have ever seen. @_@ At the entrance to some Buddhist temples (or maybe all, but I haven't noticed others), there are guardian statues that look really scary in order to ward off those with bad intentions or malicious spirits. These guys were huge and had very nasty faces. My pictures don't do them justice.

The inside of the temple had a lot of big statues, actually, but I don't remember the names of the others. I bought a deer cellphone strap for my Nara souvenir and had my book signed. The man who signed it, like the Kofukuji woman, did a really nice job. His characters actually fade out near the tips, which I thought was beautiful.

Then I walked. I should've been looking for lunch, but instead I just kept following signs. I had no idea where I was going until I realized that I had gone from one end of the park to the other, and it hadn't taken more than ten or twenty minutes! I'm so used to Kyoto where two inches on your map takes that much time by bike! Or something. I was following the signs towards a mountain, actually, but it was closed for the season, which disappointed me. I sorta wanted to take some view shots. After that I kept going straight because the signs said some pretty awesome shrine was ahead. But before I found that, I found a cafe run by a very nice woman.

I think it's true that the best things in life are those you get when you need them. That cafe wasn't anything special, and it was her job to serve me, but I was hot and hungry, and I was so thankful to that woman for feeding me, letting me sit in an air conditioned room in her house (out of which the cafe was run), and giving me cold water that if Japan had tips, I would've given her an embarrassing amount for what I ordered.

After that I wandered the rest of the way down to Kasuga Taisha Shrine. It was indeed an impressive shrine, a lot more impressive than many shrines as Shinto Shrines tend to be dwarfed by their temple counterparts (at least the shrines I've visited in Kyoto...I'm told there are some magnificent shrines around Japan that blow the Buddhist temples out of the water). I also, due to my research for my papers, understood the history behind the shrine. ^_^ But it was 500 yen to look around, it was yet another Shinto shrine like many I had seen before, and I had been spending a lot of money in vending machines that day for drinks, so I decided against it. I did get my book signed, but I think the priestess was either used to the tourism or not impressed with me getting a signature without paying to go inside. She was quick and efficient about the whole thing, and that was that.

I managed to wander back to Todaiji while trying to find other things, but they all cost terrible amounts, and I was too hot and cranky to want to walk around these places when I had to spend money. I think I'm also getting "culture fatigue," or rather, I've seen so many of these tourist sites in Japan that after awhile, you just are no longer impressed with what you're being handed. For example, there was a botanical garden, but how many gardens have I been in already? I mostly wandered around the park area and looked at all the pretty grass, ponds, and deer. But whoever designed those things seemed to think that having benches under trees was a bad idea? No shade on the benches anywhere!

I did see a few other things that looked cool like a Calligraphy Art Museum and a Craft Center, but because my map didn't have local street names (though it listed those places at places to see), I just couldn't find them among all the twisting streets. I accidentally asked a Korean for directions (boy was that embarrassing, and I don't think she understood Japanese because she didn't have a clue what I was saying...just said, "Uh...I'm Korean"). My legs were hurting by this point, and did I mention it was hot? So I gave up and headed back to the train and home.

I saw the same group of foreigners all throughout the day (Nara being the tourist city it is), which was fun, and a group of five who sat next to me on the train spoke English. I was trying to sleep, though, so I actually just got up and moved (I think I embarrassed them by doing that, but it wasn't like I was annoyed...I wanted to sleep, they wanted to talk, I moved). I tried not to overhear them, but they were speaking ENGLISH! Oh, to hear English being spoken by strangers on public transportation. I don't know what country they were from; one of the guys compared things to Germany, and one of the girls sounded like she had been to a lot of different countries. I did hear one guy ask what America was like and that he hoped the whole country wasn't like Texas...lol!

After I got off the train, I wandered into Kyoto Tower to try and see if I could figure out the cost of going up. Kyoto Tower, like most towers, is just a huge mall, but I still couldn't find the ticket booth. I decided it wasn't worth looking for and went home (I gave up a lot, but I was sick, tired, and hot...I don't function well hot, I guess).

Got home and chilled for the rest of the night. Watched a movie with the guys and girls. Went to bed.

Today I got six pages of one of my papers written. I am beyond happy by this. Tomorrow I have to do a lot of paper work for my departure stuff and then I plan on heading to the Lower Kamogawa Shrine and maybe Ginkakuji depending on the time and so on and so forth.

I'm not sure if I'll write anything until I get back from Okinawa. Even after I get back, I'm not sure you'll get more than a: "I'm back! I'm heading home in two days. See y'all then!" It's crunch time ladies and gentlemen, an Okinawa's right at the end of it. I'm leaving Friday, btw, and will be home the 31st.

So it's all been craziness lately. I figure I better post before I head off to Okinawa, which I'm sure will require a full post in itself.

Um, so Saturday Emily and I ended up going to Tenryuji, which was both stupid and cool (oddly enough). Tenryuji is over in Arashiyama and has some really cool garden areas and stuff. We took a lot of pictures of lotus and cranes on the entrance grounds. But unfortunately, we didn't understand how the whole temple ticket system worked for this particular temple. It seemed they wanted you to pay 500 yen to go into this one temple with a really cool painting on it, and then another 500 yen to go into another part of the temple, and then another 100 yen to see the temple gardens! We would've chosen to see the temple and gardens if we knew that was the way it worked, but instead we paid 500 yen to go into a smallish building that had a really cool dragon painted on the ceiling.
Despite the fact that the latest building of the temple was 1900 (fires keep burning them down), the dragon painted on the ceiling (called Unryū-zu) is from the late 1990's (can't seem to find my brochure...it was 1995 or 97 I think). I noticed that the linework was very modern (it looked sorta...uh...like something I'd see in a comic book...no offense to the artist. I happened to like it that way), and I was actually quite pleased to see such a modern work in an older building. It made me happy to think that newer artists can still have a hand in the cultural aspects of Japan's past, and that you can blend these old temples with new works and such. And to think, as long as another fire doesn't take this temple down (or some other un-thought of disaster that comes with the future), soon that modern painting will be ancient art for the next generation.

Afterwards it was still early in the day, so Emily and I walked through all the cool little shops around Arashiyama. I bought some cute kitsune dolls for myself and socks for Alicia (and a pair for myself as well). We then soaked our feet in a foot hotbath near the train station. It was loverly.

I forget what I did that night. I think I died. Oh no, wait! We had a farewell party downstairs. I made garlic bread (didn't have time to make anything else), sat around for about an hour, and then went upstairs and died.

My throat was in a terrible state that day, and so I slept most of the night. Except I did that thing were I went to bed at, like, 7 p.m., then woke up around 11ish, and didn't sleep again until 3 or something. I think. Saturday and Sunday were kinda hazy. I did a similar thing on Sunday with just sleeping, eating, and...yeah, basically that covers it. I think I only went outside for Mass.

Monday I went to school early because I wanted to see the doctor. That would be, of course, the day my throat began to clear up. I had to wait an hour or so to see the English-speaking doctor, and then he just said, "Well, you have a cold. I'll give you medicine. Best thing is sleep." But at least he gave me pills and stuff, which if it wasn't actually physically comforting, was mentally comforting. The only thing is that some of the medicine he gave, which looks like dry laundry soap in little packets and you pour it down your throat and then drink water, actually seemed to make my throat worse. Like, it burned going down, and I had a hard time eating after I took it. So...I decided to lay off that stuff. Maybe that's how it's supposed to work, but I didn't want to chance I had found my one medicine allergy while staying in Japan.

We had the graduation ceremony around 4 p.m. Lotsa speeches, and then we all got hustled into the cafeteria. After we had eaten and were milling around, that's when they handed out the diplomas. Smart cookies we have here. You could chat while they were giving people their stuff. We also got a little box as a present. It's all pretty with flowery designs and stuff.

Then we had a slide show with various pictures that Jason, our counselor, put together. And we also got our yearbooks, which aren't really yearbooks. Everyone got a piece of paper, put their name, address, e-mails, and then random things like pictures, drawn pictures, poems, or just written thanks across the bottom. And they photocopied them and put it all together in a book. It's really nice, though, for a 4-month exchange program.

After that I went home and crashed again. Good 'ol sleep.

I'll post about Tuesday next. I went to Nara, and that's a story in itself.

To Alicia:  I come back August 2nd.

To Marc:  Thanks.

So, I went to school and got my test back, and then my class and I spent the rest of the day playing stupid games and eating Tayama-sensei's treats she brought.  Afterwards I went down to the lunch table to meet with some friends, and Jason (our basic reliance guy who works for Rits) comes up to me and is like, "Abby!  We have a photo shoot for a brochure today, and nobody who said they were showing up showed up.  Please!"  So because he looked desperate, I said yes.  So I got to be in a photo shoot for this brochure.

It was so...like, I knew they were going to have us do those poses, but it was annoying.  The guys put their hands in their pockets or across their chests and looked all tough and relaxed, and we girls had to clasp ours in front of us or behind us and look all feminine.  Ugh.  I hate it.  And then we had to "talk" to each other at one point...but the best was a the end, they said, "Just look like you're having a good time."  So I'm standing between Christopher and Ted, two guys over six foot, and we all try to put our arms around each other like we're good friends.  I was nearly killed!  0_0  Hehehehe...it was fun.

But because it took so long, my friends had to leave for their class before I got back.  I felt bad...-_-

I did get 1,000 yen to spend at any bookstore in town though.  ^_^  I was thinking of buying a magazine of some sort before I came back, like something about fashion or something.

Afterwards I went to Myoshinji, this temple complex really close to my school that I pass everyday on my bike.  I really just went because I pass it everyday on my bike.  Since it was a complex, though, most of the temples were lived in, so I could only see, like, the front gardens of a lot of them.  Even then, I'm not sure I was supposed to take pictures or how far in I was allowed to go.  I kinda wandered and hoped if I went too far, someone would turn me around politely.

Went to the dollar store and bought a ton of random gifts for relatives and people I may have forgotten about...*innocent eyes*

Ugh...but throughout everything, I have a sore throat!  It just started developing last night and now is in total pain mode.  It's weird, too, because usually sore throats feel hot, and I'm all tired and feverish throughout the day, and drinking something (and usually orange juice...I overdose on Vitamin C whenever I start feeling sick) usually helps sooth the pain.  But this just hurts.  Drinking orange juice does nothing (I haven't tried hot drinks yet, but that's next on my list), I don't feel tired, and I'm not feverish.  It's like I somehow strained the glands in my throat or something so that it hurts every time I swallow or open my mouth.  I don't have any flu or normal viral symptoms at all.

I hope it goes away quick!  It did get me to finally go and get my insurance paid off just in case there's a hospital visit in my future, but I have a lot I need to do this week!  Tomorrow is either a trip to Nara or various temple sightseeing (depends on what Emily wants to do), and I need to head down to Kobe before Friday as well.  Friday is when I go to Okinawa, and I'm there until the 31st, which only gives me one day before I'm back in the states.

Ahhhhhh!  It's all happening so fast!

Took my last test today.  Tomorrow I go in for the "here's your test back, let's talk a bit before you leave" class and then I'm done!  Done, done, done!

Except for those papers, but who's counting, ne?

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Current Mood: ecstatic

So today was the Gion Matsuri big parade.  Those hugely wooden floats are taken around the streets of downtown, pulled only by many men using ropes.  It's an impressive sight, that it is.  Most of them are decorated in tapestries given to the Japanese by foreign traders hundreds of years ago (I think...if I remember my video lesson correctly).  Everyone dresses in traditional clothing and everything.

I went an hour early and still got shoved near the back-ish area.  Mostly this was because Japanese people push like nothing else when they want to see something.  It's one of those things everyone tells you about the Japanese but you just have to see for yourself.  Such a polite culture, but they don't mind cutting in front of you or shoving at you until you move to get a better view.  I guess this is the same with the way they drive, though (or maybe that's just big city driving...I had a scooter honk at me today because I wanted to get in that space between the cars and the sidewalk on the rode so I didn't actually have to ride on the sidewalk, and the scooter wanted to get in the same area.  And I'm pretty sure scooters have to follow the same rules as cars as in no sharing lanes, but they just don't do that around here).

I did purposely let some people in front of me just because they were so short that it didn't matter.  I could see over them, but they couldn't see over me, so...

It was nice, though, because whenever the big floats came, the first three rows of people would kneel down to take pictures so that we in the back could get some good pictures too.  I tried to do the same as I knew I was one of the taller people near the front row, but you can only do so much after awhile.

I only stayed for, like, an hour or an hour and a half.  My legs were killing me, and it was the same thing over and over again.  All the floats look about the same, and after you've seen them turn about two of them, it's not such a novelty.  I mean, it was a great cultural experience, and if I could've sat down or not been shoved about, I think I would have watched the whole thing.  It was nice, after all, and different.

The turning thing was cool too.  I went early enough to get a spot near one of the corners the floats have to make a 90 degree rotation at.  The corner spots are considered the best as are the starting point and the presentation of the certificate points.  I actually thought I was at the presentation point, but it turned out that was somewhere else I guess.

Everything in this parade is old fashion.  The wooden floats are held together by rope only using an age-old binding method.  No nails.  And when they turn them, they put sticks of bamboo under the wheels and then water them to make them slick.  Then everyone works together and heaves, and the whole thing turns.  It actually takes about three turns to get it all the way around.  It's amazing, too, how the crowd would awe and clap over every turn even after seeing it so many times.

There are also smaller floats that are just picked up by everyone and rotated.

After the Matsuri, I went home and napped because Toki contacted me last night to tell me we were going to do the farewell party today.  @_@  I was like, "Ah!  Not planned, not planned!"  And I almost didn't make it on time either because it was at the BKC campus, which is an hour or so by shuttle bus, and I didn't realize how long it took or that the shuttle bus ran at different times than regular buses.

Those shuttle buses are niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice though.  300 yen ($3), and you get plush seats that can be reclined and a tray and drink cup to put your things on.

The farewell party was like a confidence boost for me.  I spoke Japanese almost the entire time.  Not good Japanese, mind you, but I spoke Japanese almost the entire time.  And the best part was that even though I was totally screwing up most of it, I didn't get all freaked out and nervous.  I think that's the biggest improvement I made in the 4 months here, was that I learned how to speak even if you don't know exactly what you're saying or if you're not saying it in the correct way.  It's too bad I just broke this barrier, though.  I think it's only after you break this barrier that you really learn to start adjusting, but that would mean another semester I don't have the money or time for (though Kevin tried his hardest to convince me that maybe taking an extra semester I don't need and just paying for the extra one I'll have to take at home would be a good idea...-_-).

Comparing that with the first dinner I had with the Ritsumeikan/IC students, it was a change.  I wouldn't dare speak Japanese at the first dinner unless I had to, and only then short phrases.  And I noticed that people were very willing to help me this time around.  As long as I tried, they would speak slowly and easily to me and be very patient.

The gang gave me a Totoro plushie as my farewell gift.  *sniff*  It was so nice of them.  Even though I hardly saw them, it will be sad to know I can't just call them up or go do something fun with them in the future.

Current Mood: content
Current Music: Gion Festival Flutes