Its tradition in Japan to visit a shrine or temple during ’shogatsu’, or the new year. Most people will go on January 1, but new years celebrations last until January 3. So, on January 2, I struck out on a trip to visit Japan’s holiest Shinto shrine. I had known about Ise [...]

My blog post is finally done chronicling my adventures in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka with Nick. Its 19 pages long. Enjoy!!
Day 1: (Monday Dec 19,2005)
Woke up at 5:30am, and looked outside my window to find that about a foot (yes, 12 inches!) of snow had fallen in Hikone. Not too happy about [...]

Two weeks have passed since Cassidy and I went to Hiroshima and Fukuoka, so we decided that we were finally rested up enough, and we put on our traveling shoes once again, this time to visit Kyoto. Because of the event that I had attended at the Kyoto Women’s College about a month back, [...]

Its now been 4 days since I have returned from my trip to Hiroshima and Fukuoka, and I’ve finally gotten enough sleep to make up for the exhaustion that was brought on by all the walking, traveling, sightseeing, and cool stuff that Cassidy and I did in Hiroshima and Fukuoka. Beware, this post is [...]

This past weekend I got to experience a number of different cultural events in Shiga, got to use my Japanese a lot, and had a lot of fun. Heres a rundown.
Friday:
Friday started out like any other Friday here, with the weekly test. After the test, we had about 10 minutes to slack off [...]

So, this Saturday, thanks to beautiful weather (no rain again on a Saturday?? is it the end of the world??!?) Cassidy and I headed off for Nagoya, where we planned to go the Nagoya castle, a huge Totoro/Ghibli store, and just generally wander around for the day. Starting out for Hikone station at 8am, [...]

So after the test on Friday, Sean Siberio, someone in first year who I’ve been chatting with a lot lately (who will for the rest of the post be referred to as Mr. Negative) invited me to head down this private rail line that you can take from Hikone Station (Omi Railways) to a town [...]

This Sunday, I returned to Nara once again. I went there the first time last year in March, when everything was cold and dead, and the sacred deer that roam the city were very, very hungry. So on this visit I was hoping for a few things, 1) nice green grass and green [...]

Getting to Osaka around 2pm, we decided that we would get off at Nanba station, instead of Osaka station, where we had originally planned to go. I wanted to wander around some of the shops there (its the entertainment/shopping district of Osaka), because some of the other students here at JCMU have been able [...]

A little background information first: In the year 794, Emperor Kammu moved the Japanese capital from Heijyo-kyo (today known as Nara) to the city of Heian-kyo. What followed the moving of the capital was the Heian period of Japan, which stands out as a period of great art, literature, and culture. Some [...]