Kyoto Trip Part 1

My trip to Kyoto, for me was very spontaneous. My friends Monica and Chris has asked me earlier in the week if I wanted to go "somewhere" for the long weekend. I sorta just ignored the question, cause I'm lazy. Didn't want want to think. :) Then they spent the night on Thursday night (Nov. 19th) because they live far away, and we had a 2 day JET Prefectural meeting in Yamaguchi city (right next to Hofu). So they saved on driving time, and we got to chill.

The next morning (Friday) I wake up. I get ready. We need to leave at 8:30 a.m. to get to Kencho. At 8:15 I say "Hey, can I still come with you guys?" and they say "Yeah, lets go to Kyoto". So thats how it all began. haha. So from 8:20-8:30 we make hostel reservations.

After Kencho is done, we jet to an ATM which is newly filled with money (payday), and get to the train station...where we bought Shinkansen tickets to Kyoto on the spot. It was my first ride on a Shinkansen!! It was like a Disneyland ride for me all the way! Shinkansen is Japanese bullet-train. Its really fast. Although it still took us like 3 hours to get to Kyoto. Well thats pretty fast. It would have taken us 8 hours and probably over 100 dollars in tolls to go by car.

Anyways, we get there, we find the hostel (that was no small endeavor either), and the hostel guy can't find our reservation. What?!? No reservation. After convincing him to look harder, he finds our reservation. For DECEMBER 20, 21, 22. Oh no!! We then realize that this is like the busiest weekend of the year for Kyoto, and there is no way we were going to find a place at 10p.m. at night. The hostel guy called around for us, but everywhere was booked. So...you see the picture that I opened this blog with? Thats me posing in the room he let us sleep in for free. The employee storage room!!! Who else can say that in a state of emergency, they slept in an employee storage room!! It was nice though. He pulled in clean mattresses for us, and I was happy.

We were really in a bind. That is the kind of thing that I would have loved to do for someone in need when I worked at the Days Inn... but in America you just can't do that. What if I had tripped over some cleaning solution and broke my arm, and had emotional suffering? You know? I'm glad there are places in the world where you just don't really have to worry about litigation.

Each day that we were in Kyoto, we picked up all day bus tickets for 500 Yen a day. Thats a pretty sweet deal, but then we had to ride the buses. :/ Do you like this line to get into the bus? Whenever there was a crazy line like this, the next bus coming would already be full. So each bus that stopped would allow 4 or 5 people to SQUEEZE on much to the chagrin of current passengers.

I love this picture. What are those hordes of people looking at!? Leaves. Yep. :)

Do you see what I mean by "Kyoto was packed?"

Our hostel guy told us that usually Kyoto has 2 million residents. But during this specific weekend, the city is crawling with over 7 million people! Now I didn't check any numbers or anything, but it seemed obvious to me that the 7 million was an understatement.

This was the perfect time to be in Kyoto for "the changing of the leaves". Its really special, to be able to be in such a beautiful place, when all the leaves are in a vibrant limbo. Japanese people really respect nature during Autumn and Cherry Blossom seasons.

The deep oranges and reds were really something. My camera actually died on the trip, as did my phone, because I tried to take too many pictures of trees. Its a lost cause. You just have to see it yourself. Everyone. Go to Kyoto in late November. There.

This is part of Inari shrine. We walked for hours around here and Nanzen-ji, and basically one corner of a corner of Kyoto. Going here for these 3 days just makes one realize that you need a year to see it all. And thats probably one stressful/check things off your list, year.

My blog only has so much space, but this picture just gives you a taste of how the whole mountainside is covered with shrines and holy-water holes. :)

Here...for 500 Yen, you can put your own wish up on the wishing wall. Foxes in Japan are an important part of Japanese culture and folklore. They are wise and magical beings, who have great power, and sometimes even more cunning and mischief, so we must make offerings. This is to prove that we are staying humble. So here we can make an offering, and get a wish. I wished for my family's health and happiness, and also for the health and happiness of mi prima amiga at home, who is about to have a beautiful baby girl! I love you Diana~!

This big Christmas tree was in Kyoto station. Like most big train stations, there was a lot of shopping inside, but unlike the amazing shopping of Korean stations...this place was expeeeensive. In fact, this Christmas tree was right outside of the Starbucks. Yes. The Starbucks which I miss every day when I am in Hofu. So I drank it each day. 3 days. 3 Venti cups of regular hot coffee. 460 Yen per. grrrrr. I miss my $190 Venti at home...

This video shows Monica walking through one of the many hallways covered by orange special overhangs. Each one of those banisters is paid for by a business-person hoping to find and keep prosperity by donating a piece of beauty to this special place in Japan.

Wikipedia says: Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) is the head shrine of Inari, located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The shrine sits at the base of a mountain also named Inari, and includes trails up the mountain to many smaller shrines.

Because Inari is the god of business, each of the Torii is donated by a Japanese business.

Merchants and manufacturers worship Inari for wealth. Donated torii lining footpaths are part of the scenic view.

So each orange banister is called a torii. This whole area was so completely beautiful. If you watch the video one more time, you can see Monica, and the other international tourists fighting for the good picture. Must wage war to get an unhindered picture!...thats for sure!

Updatey update pt. 2

Hello! Updatey update pt. 1 featured some veggies from a local farm... So I thought it just to follow the same title.

Yesterday was very cool. I woke up, cleaned, and then went to play volleyball with 5 other JETs. I love volleyball!!! But I am very sore today... Props to all 5 other players that put up a good fight against the Steff'an'ator. ;)

Then to keep with the theme of being outdoorsy and cool like that, I went farming with my friend Tom. I want to publicly say that Tom's wife Izumi is the coolest Japanese chic around! This I am saying outloud because in the BBQ post...a couple posts ago, I made a mistake on her name. *I smack myself in the head. I will fix it in a sec, so don't bother trying to see my mistake!

So, we spent some time pulling up fresh radishes, purple Japanese lettuce, pepper of all varieties, different types of lettuces. Okay, I'm really bad at this. I don't know the names for everything we got. Most of the plants were different from the last time I went to the farm...and these ones all had Japanese names! Luckily Tom tells me as I cut and pick stuff how to prepare it. So I may not know the names of this stuff, but I sure as heck remember which parts of what are poisonous, no need to be cooked, or can be eaten raw!

We also drove by the Tom/Izumi orchard of greatness, where we had that BBQ before, and picked some citrus'y fruits that of course I don't know the names of either. I kept calling things "Daidos" as it seems like everything he told me started with "Dai". So I was always close.

So we picked a bunch of Daidos, and then went back to their apartment, where I played with their son, and Izumi made dinner for us all, using stuff we just picked! It was not only the most beautiful salad ever, but the best tasting. I love radish! And Daido leaves!

If Tom or Izumi are reading this: Free baby-sitting. Serious.

Anyways, that was all yesterday, and tonight, I had a wonderful dinner too. Radish salad. Boiled Daido leaves dipped in Wasabi Sauce. Stir fried Daido stems of various colors, with tofu and rice. Wow, sounds pretty vegan. Unless there is something I don't know about in sesame seed dressing.

Random Stuff

Some of the students write me letters on their free time, and I write them back. Its really cute, and makes me happy! They get to practice their English, and I get to feel like a teacher who is well-liked.

Here is the road that I walk to get to my special needs school. The Mountain at the very center of the picture, in the far distance is where my school is located. Its quite a walk. But as long as it looks like this along the way, I'm not complainin'.

This is a picture of my base school. Its a nice school. The kids at this school always show that they are very happy to be there. They don't sleep in the classes like the kids at another school that I will leave unnamed. :)

Halloween Activity

Halloween in Hofu. I like the sign "LOC the Halloween." I wonder who thought of that and if they knew it was like a pun. LOC is the name of this mall "LOC City" that is. And obviously it sounds like "Rock the Halloween", plus many Japanese people confuse their Rs and their L's. Just wondering if it was intentional or not. :)

My friends over at the church. I went to a Halloween activity, which turned out to be lots of fun!

We played lots of games. Such as "bobbing for apples" which was slightly modified here. hahaha. We bobbed for a piece of an apple on its own individual plate, with a dollop of caramel on top. Awesome! Apples here are like 3 bucks each. If I were planning this game, they would have been even smaller pieces of apple. :)

We ate a lot of yummy food. My contribution was 10 cans of ginger ale. :) mmmmmm. I wish I had some ginger ale right now....

We played lots of games, and I took home lots of extra chocolate chip pumpkin cookies. Yummy.

Is this a popular missionary game? The one missionary showing was giving a monologue, and the one hiding behind him was being his hands. Oh yeah, it was called "Day in the life of a Missionary" so it started with the hidden missionary fishing the table for a toothbrush, and sticking it in his eye. It was really funny. :)

Weekend BB-Que!!!

So this post is from a wonderful day back on October 24th! I had previously mentioned by new friend Tom. Tom, I had randomly waved at during a festival...but little did I know our paths would cross again at a local elementary school. Usually I only teach at 3 schools...2 high schools, and a special needs mixed school (mostly junior high and high school). But when my base high school is in testing mode (about 5 times a year) I get to do all my work at a local elementary.

It was my second day at the elementary, and since I'm not there enough to warrant a desk...I get stuck in a little waiting room in between classes. I was expecting just to get a lot farther in my latest Sookie Stackhouse novel, but instead, there was Tom...stuck in the waiting room with me! He owns his own private English company, and the elementary school also calls on him! I may have already stated all this. :) Anyways, he invited me to a BBQ he was putting on, and here are pics from the BBQ!!!

His family has two plots of land. One is where his farm is, which is where I got lots of veggies that I showed in a previous post. But the second plot is overlooking this beautiful beach!

Here, Tom and family have all the makings for a good BBQ. Picnic tables, benches, the BBQ :)

The BBQ was scheduled to begin around 3:00pm so that when we were done eating, we could watch the sunset!

Here is Tom, getting his BBQ on. The other people at the BBQ were his students. They decided to have a "Special Class" which just meant English conversation over great food and drink!

We all met at a local supermarket at 2:00p and bought all the fixings...and then drove over to the BBQ location. His students were really cool people.

We BBQed for hours, and had many different dishes. There were two BBQ's and at one point, one was a big pot, where we steamed these sausages that you can see on that rack!

Tom was the master BBQer but we all had our chance to cook.

Here's Tom and his cutie cutie cutie baby! This little lad learns English in the home, and Japanese outside of the home. Meaning both Tom and his wife Izumi are billingual, so they try to provide stability in learning by speaking only English at home, and only Japanese outside of home. I really hope that baby Kento picks up his dad's British accent!

Kento is lucky to have such a great mom and dad! This was really such a lovely day...you know, one of those days that you can't possibly explain via blog. Just one of those days that you look forward to whenever you are down! I'm sure I'll be BBQ'ing there again sometime this year! Maybe in the spring though, after this cooooooooold weather passes. This day last month may have been the last nice day for the next few months!

We all watched the Sunset, cleaned up (a little...I'm sure Tom had a lot of work ahead of him the next morning!), and then went out for a while to Laughable. We all made it home safe and happy!

Festivals Festivals

I start this post with a quaint picture of the Southern most part of Hofu that I was able to get to. I just rode my bike South, until I could ride South no more. :) And I found a cute place, with fathers and sons fishing, and old ladies staring at me like I was out of my Gaijin boundaries.

It was great. All of these pictures are from the second weekend in October, I think. Maybe the weekend before. Or after. Thats why I need to catch up on my blogging ;)

There was a random parade in Hofu going on. It was lovely. It started at the train station (basically where this picture was taken) and went all the way up to Tenmangu Shrine in the Northern most part of the city. I wonder how long it took for the participants in the Parade to walk to route, because it was the slowest parade I have ever seen.

As far as I could tell, it was a parade celebrating traditional Japanese culture. There were all sorts of spots in the parade line. From traditional singing, to guys that looked like ninjas jumping around, to lots of traditional Japanese royalty stuff.

I want to be a little Japanese girl!

There were many princesses being carried up to the shrine in this fashion. It was all very beautiful and peaceful.

And then we switch gears to the school festival at my base school. Far from peaceful, it was lively, hopping and fun! My students did all kinds of skits, plays, dance routines, singing, and joking.

I guess each class had to do something for the festival. In Japanese high schools, the teachers change classes, not the students. So for the most part, the kids are all in the same one class for the year, and teachers pop in and out of that class. I can see benefits and drawbacks to this system that is so different from most American High schools. But certainly one benefit is that all the kids in the class get to know each-other very well...and thus they can create some pretty engaging stuff for festivals! :)

Here is one of my classes doing "Thriller", and you can see when you watch the video. They were so amazing.

The entire festival was hosted by Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama. The MC's were the Obama's. Of course I mean Japanese students who did pretty good role-playing as far as I could tell in listening to their Japanese Obama role-playing. Japan loves Obama. All the time, in different circumstances, I hear "Yes we can!".

I love festivals! I love students! Keep on dancing!

Korea Time!

So this was my first time setting foot in Korea. Anna and I arrived on Nov. 1st, after an excellent Halloween. Nov. 1st was a Sunday. Tuesday was a National Holiday in Japan (National Sports and Fitness Day I think)...so I only had to take one day off (Monday) to enjoy this mini-Holiday. 3 days, and 2 Nights in Pusan, South Korea. Or Busan. Pusan/Busan. I think its Busan, and only Pusan in the U.S. Anyways, it was a great trip, and I'm definitely hoping to go back! I can't wait to see Seoul, and more Busan, and everything in-between!

We took a fast fast ferry. Usually it takes a very long time to get to Korea by boat, so many people take a "night ferry"...But our boat "The BEETLE" is very new, and very technologically advanced. It got us from Fukuoka to Busan in 2 hours and 55 minutes.

Here is a quote from the Beetle website: "At the front and back, the Beetle is equipped with two hydrofoils, which lift the hull of the moving vessel from the water surface (foil-borne). Since the ship moves above the water, it tends to avoid the influence of waves."

We arrived in Busan, got all settled in with our couchsurfing friend (where we stayed) and headed out to enjoy Korea. First stop: quench our hunger with a Burger, Fries, and REAL coffee on the beach (less than a block away from where we were staying).

We walked the beaches, cruised the shops, and searched desperately for a nail place. We had both been looking forward to pedicures, which do not exist in Japan (at least our area of Japan). But in Korea, most things were closed on Sunday. And by the time Monday and Tuesday rolled around, we had some serious shopping to be doing. We tried the Pedicure thing one more time, but its not like in America where there are 10 people waiting to help YOU. It was more like 1 lady with a 2 hour wait. Sigh....I guess I'll have to get my pedicure in good ole' Upland, California next month.

There were really cool statues, and pieces of art up all around the city like this. I can't put all the pictures up on this little blog, but this is just one example of a cool piece of art. A bronze Asgard just chilling in the middle of the bay. Okay, probably not an Asgard, but I can dream.

Every time we walked by a Japanese restaurant, we joked "LETS EAT THERE!!". Sorry Japanese food...you ain't got nothing on Korea. This is the sauce to the amazing Vietnamese dinner we had there the first night. The second night we had an amazing Thai meal. Besides that there was one meal at a bakery, and one at a Korean restaurant, but I wouldn't have called that real Korean. Why did we go to Korea and focus on Vietnamese and Thai? I guess its because there is one Korean restaurant in Hofu, but absolutely no Vietnamese or Thai, so we just had to jump on the opportunity.

The shopping was great. I got to work on my bargaining skills. Didn't buy as much as I wanted to...but I didn't bring enough money :( and only saw a useable ATM the last 2 hours that we were there. But I bought a lot of good stuff. Just not enough to spread around during Christmas. Watch me just go Christmas shopping on the 23rd in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. THAT'D be just like me.

Here was our last little meal before leaving. The only Korean place we ate at, and only had time for RICE. Is that really Korean? Well it was spicy. Spicy Rice=Good rice.

Gotta go back, I love Korea. LOVE KOREA! South. Don't worry.

Oct. 3rd :)

This was the day of my base school's School Festival. All the other school festivals I have gone to have actually been inside the school, and on school grounds. This school festival though was in the middle of the city, winding up through the arcade/ginza street and in the common areas of inner-city shopping. That made it pretty cool!

Because the festivities were in the middle of the city, for all: I finally met the missionaries here! I love festivals like this because it is seriously a great way to meet people. I first saw my friend Tom at this festival also! And the very first festival I went to was where I met a bunch of my other friends including Anna. So yay for random festivals all over the year!

All the booths were run by my students. I spent too much money this day, but its because I wanted to support my students! This "arcade" or walkway or whatever, I'm sure you will see in pictures throughout the year, because it is right smack in the middle of the city. My favorite bar is right here too. Which you will see in pictures at the bottom of this post. :)

Here is my schools band playing something. I think it was "over the rainbow" or something like that. hehe. I stayed for a little bit, but there were no seats left. This took place in the of the community buildings within the arcade.

So after I got done with the school festival...I watched the Series Premiere of Stargate Universe. AWESOME! But I'll try not to bore you with that. But you should watch it. Its definitely a show where you don't need to have watched the previous series to love this one.

Anyways, after SGU, I boogied over to Tokuyama to meet up with my friend Daria. She got tickets to an amazing fireworks display! I think the fireworks were in honor of autumn...they have a festival every first Saturday of October to celebrate the coming of the changing of the leaves. I think. I could be making that up. But there was definitely a mini-festival, and a GRAND display of fireworks. The Japanese definitely know what they are doing with fireworks. It was the best fireworks display I've ever seen.

Granted, I don't think I've ever actually paid for fireworks before this night. Maybe on 4th of July if I were to pay to see them, they'd be extra cool too. But the 900 Yen for these fireworks was well worth it. You can see a short snippet at the bottom of this post (videos go the bottom by default). There was music, lasers, fireworks, all perfectly timed and organized. Even the grand finale was so well thought out. I mention that because I feel like a grand finale in America is just to shoot off as many random fireworks as possible. No rhyme or reason--just a lot! But in Japan, its like the entire show was building up to one emotional finale. It was all like a Classical Composition in the sky.

After Fireworks, I met up with Anna to go to Laughable, my favorite bar (well, up until this point in time, the ONLY bar I knew of). Dude in sunglasses there is the owner, and he is really really cool.

It was a fun night, and once again, made a lot of new friends.

I really liked this guy's devil ears. Lets be friends! ...Now..., I will definitely recognize people that I meet again, but as for names........

Remembering people's names here is next to impossible. Even people I work with everyday. There are just too many people, and the names are all foreign to me. I know thats my problem, its just something I have to get use to. I have 2 folders full of names and pictures in my backpack, to help me memorize names. I'm not happy with my progress though. At least I am trying!

Remember, its always 100000 times cooler if you're there! Press the play button to get a taste.

OH! I FORGOT TO MENTION!!!.. these fireworks were all over the ocean. We had the best seats available, at the port! But the fireworks and lasers and everything were all done from a couple of boats, and an adjacent island. Really cool!

Halloween Day Adventures

So on Halloween day, a handful of JETs went to an orphanage here in Yamaguchi Prefecture. It was one of the most awesome experiences ever. Monica, a JET in Shimonoseki organized the visit. Hopefully it will be a monthly thing, and I'll always be able to make it, because the kids were great, the atmosphere was great, and I just felt so at home there. There were about 10 of us JETs and about 20 kids.

The kids aren't all orphans...there are different circumstances for each child. They ranged from about 5 to about 12. These are all guess-timates. We carved pumpkins, played, and played some more.

Pumpkin carving is so much more difficult than I ever remember it! I started carving the face before de-seeding though. Sigh, sometimes I'm not very smart. But I think someone should invent some kind of machine that just cleans out the center in like 5 min. I think me and the 2 kids assigned to that pumpkin spent an hour trying to get those darn seeds out.

Sorry, can't post pics of the kids or anything, but trust me, if you were there, you'd wanna adopt them all...although apparently adoption in Japan is near impossible. Anyways. ..

Now to totally switch gears...Halloween night. Beware that these pics are not of jolly pumpkins.

Anna and I hopped on a bus to go to Fukuoka. We stayed with our friend Tim again, and didn't really plan on going out, because we were headed out to Korea by ferry early the next morning. Tim and Morita, his friend who we also know from hanging out with them last time we were in Fukuoka, demanded that we get dressed up and go out.

He supplied us with costumes, knowing that we probably wouldn't bring any. Thanks Tim! It was a fun fun night! We were up bright and early the next day to go to Korea, but more on that in another post.

Left-random picture. Even Jason needs a drink now and again.

I'm glad we were in Fukuoka for Halloween. I'm sure no on in Hofu got dressed up. Japanese don't have halloween. There were plenty of Japanese people at the Halloween party we went to..but they were likely there because they love American culture, or wanted to pick up a Gaijin lova'.

To my right--NObama. Gotta love it. The spelling, the gun, the face. So funny.

I was dressed up as "Akuyaku" which just means "bad guy"...like a ubiquitous term for bad guy, in kind of a funny way. Anna was Akuyaku Mikii (Mickey). Bad guy Mickey Mouse.

My friend there with the glasses was really funny. Ask him what he was, and he'd ask you your name, touch his finger to his earpiece and speak into his watch, getting a background check on the 'asker'. Tim is of course Wolverine. Morita is something or another. In the last picture of this post you will see something written on his head. It is "Kill" or "Die" or something...written with MY EYELINER. Anyways, some kind of manga character or something. :)

Smoking baby was a bartender there. He made his rounds to pass out candy to all the partygoers.

The picture is cut off, but he is wearing a diaper. Japan man, Japan. :)

We had a fun time, all in all! Anna and I went back early(ish) since we had to head out early, and the boys probably stayed out all night.

Next Halloween, I vow to really be something for halloween. Its like my favorite holiday, but I never put any effort into it!

Bye bye!

Potluck!

Hey there! Okay, I know you are getting tired of hearing this. But one last time....I have such a backup of things that I want to share with all of you! Before, I had mostly just been going from back to forward. But that doesn't work, because many times things are fresh in my head, and I can't wait over a month to blog about!!! So here, is a "long time ago" blog, and I think I'm going to try to go back to front, front to back, back to front, etc, etc... but of course with exceptions. :) Okay. So now that that is settled....

I think it was October 1st. Lots of us JETs held a POTLUCK at Eric's house. I would like to pop in that I was in the group of the few (5 of us?) people who were around during the original conception of the idea. :P .

I made potato salad. I liked it a lot, but it definitely wasn't the most popular food at the Potluck. I'd like to say, that my mom's potato salad would SMASH everyone else's work. But this was my first time attempting it by myself, and I overcooked the potatoes. Plus Japanese mayonnaise and such is ...um.... "different". Plus, its much better fresh, and I had to make it at least 24 hours in advance because of my school schedule, etc. But... I also need to thank Anna for giving me the yellow mustard that doesn't exist in Japan.

Here is Steve. Cool guy, Cool guy! He is making his "7 layer dip"... although it was 4 or 5 layers..it was amazing! Of course it helped that some saviors made the 2 or 3 hour drive to go to COSTCO in Fukuoka to go buy tortilla chips.

Here, me and Hozumi are eating LASAGNA!! Lasagna made in two big glass bowls. Money. Money~!

We are all getting full. Full off of TACOS, Pecan Pie, Real Cheesecake, etc, etc!!!!!~!

All full and happy... Too bad that in the morning we have "Kencho". Kencho means "prefectural office". Basically, whenever all us JETs have Kencho, it means that we have a meeting thats going to be all day, in a "prefectural office". You get my flow??? :) I liked this Kencho though. Our guest speakers, I feel, really helped me in my everyday working job. Too hard to explain fully.

But that is why we chose to make the Potluck on Oct. 1st...so we could all stay up late, spend the night in the couple of apartments close to Kencho, and get up and go together in the morning.

And after Kencho...One more great night. We went out for "nomihodai" Which means "all you can drink". I think this all you can drink was 2500 Yen, or like 28 dollars. Who of my American friends wouldn't pay 28 dollars for 2 hours of all you can drink??? There was also lots of good food! I didn't get a good picture of the group, but there are almost 30 of us here. :)

Lots of people spent the night one more time, but I had a school festival in the morning, so I made sure *(involved a little running) to make the 10:08pm train home, so I could get up and be a jolly teacher on a Saturday morning. BTW, being a jolly teacher meant buying too many flowers and fruit and stuff front my students. :)