Well, on Friday afternoon I’m set to take off to Tokyo once again for a quick weekend trip. My friend/classmate Brian is going to be coming along as well. We’re going to be headed straight for Akihabara on Friday night, where we will be staying at the Akihabara Capsule Hotel. Saturday morning the plan is to head to Kamakura to see the Daibutsu and other cultural sites as required to get 6000yen reimbursed since this weekend is the ’student directed field trip’ weekend (I’d be seeing the Daibutsu and other sites regardless if I was getting the money or not…I was really disappointed that I couldn’t make it here the last time I was in Tokyo). After getting our fill of culture we plan to head to Hakone (yes, Hakone, no relation to Hikone) which is a famous onsen town, where we plan to hit up an as yet undetermined onsen. Coming back to Tokyo that night, it is my plan to make a huge effort to attempt to get some Pizza Hut pizza delivered [Tangent: You have NO idea how much I have been craving Pizza Hut pizza in the past month. In Sapporo there was an advertisement in the snow festival for a Pizza Hut, so Tim and I made a big effort to find it, only to find out (thanks to about 20 minutes of searching by some employees in a department store) that there actually were no Pizza Hut's in Sapporo, but that they were just advertising it. Seriously...that's just CRUEL.]

The next day in Tokyo, the plan is to wander Akihabara for a while. I’m thinking of buying some small mp3 player while I’m there, because I’ve decided that if I don’t come back after living in Japan for 9 months without some kind of slick looking electronic device, I will be committing a grave travesty and will be a failure to Japanaphiles everywhere. And no, I will NOT be buying an Ipod.

Other places of interest I want to visit:

Sirotan Town - Not just a store, but a whole TOWN of Sirotan
Yodobashi-Akiba - A brand new, ginormous electronics store in Akihabara
Cospa Gee - A cosplay store, but their website lists some very nifty t-shirts
animate - Come on, its Akihabara, I have to go to at least ONE anime store….
Yokohama, Tokyo, and Tokyo Ueno Eki Hard Rock Cafes - Does this even need to be mentioned??

Due to other things occurring the class, this is as deep as I’ve been able to ponder places to go in Akiba. If you have any suggestions, drop me a comment.

So while on the bus ride back from JCMU yesterday, I got out my camera and decided to make a video of us driving through the streets of Hikone, starting near Hikone station and ending up at JCMU. Unfortunately, I was running low on space on my memory card so there are a few places at the end where a little bit got cut out but I manage to go all the way to pulling into the JCMU parking lot! The video isn’t amazing quality, it gets fuzzy at times when my camera tries to auto focus on moving cars, but I thought maybe for those who have never been to Japan, they might want to see what your normal, everyday-looking town was like. So, enjoy (but beware, its 132mb)!

Right-click and choose Save-As to download this please!

After my fun time going to all the Hard Rock Cafe’s the day before, Saturday morning I had to get up at 7am (after getting probably less than 5 hours of sleep) to go on field trip #2 for my Japan civ class. I think the combination of the past few night’s lack of sleep (studying for the test usually results in me not getting much sleep, and then I’ve sick for the last week so that hasn’t helped much), along with some recent stress caused me to wake up feeling pretty nauseated. So I was a little worried that I might have to skip out on the trip, but after eating the last of the cereal in my dorm room, I was feeling a bit better. Got out to the bus by 8am, and we took off pretty much on time, but when we got to the station where we were going to pick up the homestay students, we had to wait about 15 minutes extra for some people that went to McDonalds…. Eventually they got back to the bus and we made our way for the next 1.5 hours (with one pit stop) to the city of Uji, which is right next door to Kyoto. Our first destination was Byodoin, a Buddhist temple established by Fujiwara Yorimichi in 1052, when he was the emperor’s chief advisor. The main feature of Byodoin is the Phoenix hall (named thusly because of the two phoenix statues on either ends of the roof) which houses a wood-carved figure of Amida Buddha. The temple itself is absolutely gorgeous, sitting on its own little island in the middle of an artificial lake, by which you have to walk over this little curved bridge to get to it. Inside of Phoenix hall, not only is there the statue of Amida Buddha, there were also originally 52 small Bodhisattva figures on the wall, each playing an instrument, dancing, or showing praise to Amida Buddha. Unfortunately, the inside of the hall today is a little bare because half of the small statues are now inside of the museum which is on the premises, and the statue of Amida Buddha is currently under renovation so its original lotus pedestal and golden halo behind it, along with a golden curtain that hung from the ceiling, and currently being stored in another location. There were some other buildings on the temple grounds, some housing statues, and also the Byodoin Museum, which in my opinion, was an amazing museum. It wasn’t a particularly large museum, and they didn’t have that many artifacts on display (mostly it was just half of the small Bodhisattva figures from Phoenix hall, a few scrolls and wall hangings, some other Buddhist statues, a large temple bell, and a few miscellaneous things) but the way the museum was laid out and just how they presented the artifacts, was especially beautiful and elegant I thought. It was a very modern looking building, stationed on the premises of this 1000 year old temple, but for some reason it looked right in place and complimented the traditional look of all the other buildings. They also have one of *the*best museum gift shops I’ve ever been to (and I used to work in one, heh). I actually picked up these neat silhouette stickers of the Bodhisattvas. Have you ever even heard of Buddhist imagery stickers before?? No, neither had I (but the scrapbooker within rejoiced). (Two other random facts about Byodoin that I find fascinating: Phoenix hall is featured on the backside of the Japanese 10-yen coin, and a full-sized replica of Phoenix hall was built, carved Buddha statue and all, in Hawaii in 1968.)

When we all got to Byodoin, I kind of wandered around with a small group which decided to break away from the main pack of JCMUers, thinking there was no set plan. After we got out of the museum, we had wanted to go inside of Phoenix hall (which was 300yen extra) so we wandered over just as all the JCMUers were leaving the place. Turns out we missed Dr. Johnson paying for everyone, but we still wanted to go inside so we were walked up to pay for ourselves when Dr. Johnson wandered out of the hall and found us. Luckily we then got to go in it for free! The inside turned out to be a little disappointing, since most of the art was not present (renovations are going until 2007), but the remnants of the paintings on the walls from 1000 years ago were pretty impressive. Some, that were on doors, seemed to be intact almost completely, while others along the walls around and behind the Buddha, were faded almost to an unrecognizable state by the sun. When we left the Phoenix hall, it was time to get back to the bus, and so we made it just on time and were told that we would next drive to a Lawsons to get some lunch. First however we had to wait, yet again, for students who couldn’t make it back on time. One particular individual who is rather dysfunctional had to actually be brought back by someone from the bus. Once we were all back, we got to the nearby Lawsons and then in the span of maybe 5 minutes, pretty much cleaned them out of all lunch-type foods. I ended up with a calzone, some apple jello thing, and onigiri (rice ball). We then were back on the bus and heading to our next stop.

Next up was Miidera, another Buddhist temple, only this time it was in Otsu, the capital of Shiga Prefecture. However, once we got to the entrance of Miidera, we were met by a friend of Dr. Johnson’s (who I only caught the first name of, unfortunately) and then drove over to a sub-temple of Miidera, whose name I sadly also don’t know. This particular temple was significant for our trip because there are three Americans buried there who had a huge influence on Japan-US relations in the early 1900’s, not to mention are responsible for the largest collection of Buddhist art in the United States. When we first got to this temple, we had to walk up this small path through a wooded area, which got me pretty excited just because I was finally going to some temple that would be very nicely isolated away from the general tourists. Getting to the main temple building, we found it to be a fairly small place. The current head caretaker came out to meet us, which turned out to be the most incredibly boring part of the day. He was fairly old and talked with an accent that made it basically impossible for me to understand a word he said, that and he was talking about a lot of esoteric topics relating to Buddhism, which went on for at least 30 minutes. When he finally did stop talking it was a total relief, and Dr. Johnson’s friend Ian then led us around parts of the temple, and then finally up this mossy forested hill, where we got to the best part of the whole place: three graves for Americans, in the middle of Japan. Crazy right? Yeah, I thought so too. Then the story that Ian-sensei (I feel bad calling the guy just Ian, he was f-ing brilliant) told us all totally blew me away. The short version of it all was that this man Bigelow came to Japan and became an ordained Buddhist priest over the course of about 10 years. During this time he would take trips to and from Japan and the US and quietly teach Buddhism to the upper class circles of Boston society, as well as then president Teddy Roosevelt. Bigelow and his friend Woods (they also happened to be gay lovers) played a huge role in saving some 44,000 pieces of Buddhist art, which at the time of the Meiji revolution, Buddhism was no longer a state religion and some temples were actually burning its artwork. Bigelow is buried next to Woods on this hill, and what’s really insane is that Woods’ grave is still maintained and fresh flowers are brought to it by his now very old followers every day, because Woods was *the* yoga guru in Japan in his day. Ian-sensei told us that (most) of this information was published in the very fascinating book titled The Great Wave which I will now be buying the nanosecond I get back to the US. He also recommended The Tea Room and Longfellow’s Tattoo, which also talk about Bigelow and Woods and their impact on Japanese and American relations and culture. He also told us that this current temple had once been part of the route of the marathon monks, which I have read about and find quite fascinating, so I asked him about them and when I could maybe see them run, and he replied that they usually start out very early in April and that I could probably make a reservation to stay overnight in a temple, go to sleep at 9pm and wake up at 3am (which is what they usually do) and then run with them! (Tell me that doesn’t sound totally awesome.) He also recommended a book to me about the marathon monks, which I will also be ordering ASAP after getting back. All in all his talk to us blew me away and I really wish that he would come to JCMU and teach a class or ANYTHING. I could just sit in the same room and listen to the guy talk for a couple hours and I would be happy.

After we finished wandering around the rest of this sub-temple, we got back to the bus where we had to wait YET AGAIN for the same dysfunctional individual, who apparently walked a good 1km away from the main path despite being behind everyone not 15ft before getting back to the bus. We even had to send out a bunch of people to go look for him and had the bus honk for him. 25 minutes later he showed up, and from then on was watched like a hawk by everyone else in the group. We then traveled back to the main temple at Miidera, which we explored for the next hour or so. The place has a fairly colorful history, which is filled mostly with conflicts between Enryakuji, the other head temple of Tendai Buddhism which is located in Kamakura. The two temples split and since both were still attempting to be the one head temple of Buddhism, they each eventually developed their own armies of monks and each took turns destroying each other’s temples and sub-temples (Miidera was burned down four times in the 11th century alone). Miidera was also the home of the imperial family for the span of about three decades before they moved into the new imperial palace in Heian-kyo. The main temple building at Miidera was currently under renovation (its roof was being replaces) so approaching it all we could see was more scaffolding and green fabric surrounding the entire building. We were able to go inside, however, and view a lot of Buddhist statues. I was also able to buy another ema for my collection! Leaving the building we walked all the way to the top of the hill that Miidera is on, and were able to see a wonderful view of Otsu right on Lake Biwa. It was around 4pm by the time, so we walked back down to where the bus was, visited yet another gift shop, then got on the bus and headed back to JCMU. The next hour or so was particularly dull, and I did my best to doze off, but because of the noises of other people playing video games and music, that wasn’t very do-able. Getting back to JCMU at 5:30pm, one hour later than scheduled, I came back to my room and proceeded to relax for the rest of the night.

More pictures!

Phoenix hall:

The main temple bell, and a picture that I love of the view of Phoenix hall over the pond:

The sub-temple at Miidera where three Americans are buried, and the view from it:

The main complex of Miidera:

A map of the complex, and also a very early ‘library’ which stored different sutras:

Peacocks in a cage on the temple grounds, and a rock from a sacred spring that was used to bless newborns:

Ever since the Seishun 18 tickets became available again, and I just happened to check the HRC website, I knew that I would have to make a trip to the 3 nearest Cafes (Nagoya, Osaka, Universal Studios Osaka) to pick up some pins. And for this trip, I was able to round up some other devote followers of the HRC religion…er I mean those awesome restaurants to go along with me. Michael has been to a bunch of HRC’s in a ton of foreign countries (and despite him going to school in Grand Rapids, he hasn’t gone to any of the same ones in the US as I have..hmmm) and he hadn’t been to any yet in Japan, so I was able to convince him that going to 3 HRC’s in one afternoon was a good idea. Hehe. That and the fact that, for 2300 yen, you can go all the way to Nagoya (usually ~$15 each way) and then go all the way back to Hikone and go to Osaka (~$18 each way), well…its just neat. So the plan was that right after the Friday Project we would ride our bikes to the station and first go to the Nagoya HRC, and then turn around and go to the Osaka HRC and end at the Universal Studios Osaka HRC. The HRC at USJ (got that?) was the logical place to end up just because it was the farther away of the two HRC’s in Osaka, and they are having their 5th anniversary as of March, and so they had this nifty new burger that if you ordered it, you would get an anniversary stuffed gorilla with it. I had also talked to a few other people who were going to be running some errands in Osaka that day, so they were going to meet us at 7pm at the USJ HRC.

So Thursday night I had a really hard time studying for the test just because I so wanted to get out of the JCMU building and go somewhere, *anywhere*. I didn’t go anywhere for ’spring break’ which was pretty boring, and there’s nothing to do around JCMU during the week and all the people I hang out with are doing homestays and so they aren’t around the dorms in the evenings. Friday morning, the test went by fast enough I suppose, I can’t really say how well I did on it yet, since our reading section was this horrid bit about this first English speaking guy to get to Japan, how the Shogunate arrested him and forced him to teach English to this group of samurai who also knew Dutch (back in the day, the Dutch were the only foreigners allowed to enter and trade with Japan (which is why today you can go to Nagasaki and look at tulips and windmills)). So finally the test was over and we then had to sit through another Friday Project, which was Aikido once again. Unfortunately the group of students this semester didn’t do anything quite as exciting as the last group, and so I didn’t get to see more gaijins tossing Japanese people over their backs. Ah well. Once the project was over, I went back to my room and got ready to leave, during which time Brian decided to join our little pilgrimage. Brian and I rode on ahead, and planned to meet Mike at the station at 1pm, because I first had to go grab some money and then hoped to go to Al Plaza to see if there was anyone that could possibly open my watch and put in a new battery. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone that could do that, so I had to go on yet another trip without a way to check the time (which is really very inconvenient when it comes to train schedules). By the time we got to the station, Mike was waiting there for us, so we all bought our Seishun 18 tickets, and I also attempted to buy tickets on a night train that runs from Tokyo to Maibara, hoping that Brian and I could use that when we come back from Tokyo next week, but for the second time at attempting to get tickets, I was unable to because they were already sold out. So it looks like we’re taking the Shinkansen back instead (which isn’t so bad really, its $100 but its is fun…and only takes about 2.5 hours).

Getting on the train headed for Maibara, we had to switch to a couple of different trains on our 1.5ish hour ride to Nagoya, where we had to get off of the JR like and go one stop, to Fushimi, on the subway to get to the HRC. Once we got there, we went inside and bought some pins, and Mike and Brian signed up for the HRC Members card (which basically you pay them 500yen, and they give you back a card with 1000yen on it to use at a future visit, and each time you buy something, you get 5% back onto the card-every time I go to a HRC with someone I tell them to get this since you get $5 free but no one ever listened to me….Brian and Mike are smart though ). After buying our various memorabilia, and taking a few pictures, we hopped back on the subway for what would be a longer-than-expected trip back through Hikone and onto Osaka. I had hoped to make it to Osaka by 4pm so that we would have plenty of time to go to the HRC in Osaka first, and buy some memorabilia, and then go to the HRC at USJ to meet up our fellow JCMUers. However, by the time we made it to Osaka station, it was approaching 6:30pm, and so we changed our plans by going to the HRC at USJ first, because I was worried we’d be late and I didn’t want those meeting us to have to be waiting forever. We had a few close calls on the trains from Osaka station to the loop line: almost getting stuck in the doors and then I got us on the wrong train at one point, so we had to get off and go back a few stops. But, we managed to make it to Universal Studios at 7pm on the dot. When we got into the HRC we went inside and looked around but the two students we would be meeting hadn’t arrived yet, so we grabbed a table for 5 (which surprisingly the place wasn’t all that busy, I had expected us to have to stand in line a bit) and proceeded to wait. And wait. 30 minutes later they hadn’t gotten there yet so we decided to order our food. I was going to get the anniversary ‘Blue Kong Burger’ which the first 2000 people to order it would get this free King Kong plushie….but in the end I decided to cave in and get my gold old standby, the Bacon Cheeseburger. And it was amazing too, once again. Brian and Mike also got burgers, mostly because we’re all starved for red meat in Japan. After finishing our burgers and generally enjoying the atmosphere, and because it was Brian’s 21st birthday the next day, we got the waiter to play the birthday rock music and bring out a dessert with a sparkler on it as the waiters and waitresses came over and made a lot of noise with tambourines. We thought he was going to get a free little cake, but unfortunately we were wrong on that account. The whole singing and tambourine-ing thing was also a bit anemic, since only 2 of the wait staff showed up (the place was a bit dead that night) but it was fun regardless. The best part was afterwards, some woman comes over with a Polaroid and took everyone’s picture, and then Brian got this awesome Happy Birthday button with our pictures on it. And a 20% off card for the gift shop. I guess I know where I’m going for my next birthday….

After finishing the dessert that I ordered (thinking that if I got a dessert they’d bring out a free little cake, oh well), we paid our bill and went down to the merchandise shop for more pins! By the time we were done shopping, it was around 9pm, and since we had made a detour to get back to the USJ HRC in time to meet the people that never showed up (turns out they got to the HRC and waited outside of it, and didn’t come inside to check to see if we were already inside, and despite this being obvious miscommunication on both sides I was given a lot of grief for it which I didn’t appreciate and was pretty hurt by), we were now worried that we might not make it to the Osaka HRC in time for Brian and Mike to get back to their station and for Brian and make his transfer train back to his homestay. We got back to JR Osaka station as quick as we could, and it was about 9:45pm when we got there. We asked the station attendant how long it would take to get to Honmachi station, next to which the HRC was located, and he said 5 minutes, so we decided to go for it. Despite some confusion on my part of how to get there on the subway, which also involved having to run to get to an incredibly packed train, we did manage to make it there unscathed. And to our great disappointment, when we got there we found the place to be absolutely ROCKING. There was a DJ playing music live, a ton of people inside doing karaoke, and a big sign outside of it advertising discounted drinks. We were really disappointed that 1) we hadn’t come here before going to USJ, and 2) trains don’t run all night so we couldn’t stay to party along with everyone else! But, we bought our pins and then rushed back to the subway to get back to JR Osaka station. We managed to get onto a New Special Rapid bound for Maibara, and for the next 1.25ish hours we stood for a while, then finally got some seats. Because of their homestays, Brian and Mike got off at Omihachiman, while I continued on to Hikone. However, not half a mile from getting into Hikone station, the train slowed down and came to a complete stop, and the conductor came on the PA and said a whole bunch of things I couldn’t understand along with a ‘taihen gomen’ which roughly translates into a ‘we’re really sorry’, so I figured something had gone wrong. They kept saying that whatever the problem was, it was in Maibara, and so we continued to sit, unmoving, for another 20 minutes, until finally we moved the 4 blocks to the platform and I got off, still not knowing why we were delayed. The next 20 minutes was the routine riding back to JCMU in pitch blackness because my light doesn’t work, followed by me not being surprised to find the front sliding doors to JCMU which are supposed to be locked at 10pm (by a student? I don’t know who is supposed to be in charge of it) still open at 12:10am. Its really a good thing Japan is such a safe country, but regardless I can’t say that makes me feel safe at all( however my dorm room remains locked at night when I am asleep, just in case).

All in all, I had a really fun time riding around on the trains and visiting all the Cafe’s. I wish it was this easy to visit them in the US!

And now pictures!

Birthday boy, and Brian and Mike standing outside the Osaka HRC:

Three new pins from the Cherry Blossom series (more to be had in Tokyo next weekend!):

So here’s another couple of things that I wanted to mention that don’t go anywhere else. A couple weeks ago our Friday Project was called E-Tegami (which in Japanese basically means picture letter), which involved us painting pictures of fruits and flowers onto postcards and then writing short letters to someone on them. So here is a picture of the two that I made:

The one on the left has a painting of a violet and has written お母さん、お元気ですか。淋しい。会いたい。which translates out to ‘Mom, how are you? I can’t wait to see you.’ which Melville-sensei and Nishikawa-sensei both said was something very Japanese to say and would make any Japanese mom cry (aww…). The one on the right features a turnip (yeah they gave it to us…so we had to paint it) and says 楽しみにしている。 which means ‘I’m looking forward to it!’. I wrote this just because….its a random set phrase in Japanese and has nothing to do with the turnip and just sounded…good.

In other news, here’s a picture of the puzzle I did over spring break. It took me only about 4 hours to do, which is a little disappointing to me since I had hoped it would be more of a challenge. But, I still have a 1000-piece to go!

So this weekend is ’spring break’ at JCMU. Its ’spring break’ in quotes because they gave us a Monday off. And that’s it. :( Although, I guess it all evens out since I will actually be done with my classes 2 weeks before everyone at U of M. So what are my exciting spring break plans?? Well, I have none. Unfortunately my monthly budget is around $0 right now (actually I just added in my purchases from yesterday, and I have 1260yen remaining (~$10)) because of my trip to Sapporo in the beginning of the month. That and everyone at JCMU that I would normally do things with are either at weekend home stays, visiting Tokyo, or busy with other things. And I’ve already gone everywhere that is a day trip from JCMU. So, since I didn’t want to sit around doing absolutely nothing all 3 days (and trust me, there really is nothing to do at JCMU unless you love playing ping pong) I finally got up the motivation to go ride my bike to Caines to do some grocery shopping and buy some puzzles. Luckily, the weather was FABULOUS at around 60F, so the bike ride there was almost enjoyable. I’m a big puzzle fan, and in Japan, they do puzzles seriously. Inside of each puzzle box, there is a little pouch of glue because its expected that after you finish the puzzle, you generally glue it together and then hang it on your wall (in a special puzzle frame, which they sell in every store next to the puzzles). The two puzzles I bought (one 500-piece and one 1000-piece) are both by the same artist, and feature gorgeous paintings of women in kimonos. You can see a picture of the one I’m currently working on here (see more like it here). They are so pretty and I would love to buy a bunch of these and bring them back with me, but since I already foresee myself leaving things behind, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

Besides doing my incredibly exciting puzzles, I had also wanted to maybe go to Osaka this weekend, for the sole reason of visiting an Outback Steakhouse. This has first stemmed from my desire to find a Pizza Hut somewhere in Kyoto, but locating any near train stations was not possible, and since I have no way of getting it delivered here at JCMU or to anywhere else, I decided to scrap that idea (it may be revisited if I go to Tokyo in 2 weeks) ((And before you ask why I’m so fixated on Pizza Hut lately, its because pizza in Japan is really horrible and not having an oven in my room makes it hard to make my own pizza, and so after 6 months I’m feeling a little deprived.)). I knew that Tim had gone to the Outback in Nagoya, but they had stumbled upon it by chance and so he wasn’t sure how to get back there, but I was able to find out that there is an Outback in Osaka right at Umeda station, which would make it very easy to find. The only problem is now, that I haven’t found anyone to go with me. Going all the way to Osaka for some awesome food would be great and all, but not very enjoyable if I’m doing it all by myself. Maybe when some certain people get back from their homestays, I can convince them to go with me. Maybe…

In a contrast to yesterday’s perfect weather, it is of course pouring out today. And generally when it rains in Japan, it rains all day long without stopping. Add to that that I am coming down with some illness. So far it has only manifested itself in a sore throat, and I’m hoping that is where it will stay because two of my classmates have recently had horrendous illnesses, causing them each multiple days gone from class and visits to local doctors. They also sit next to me. I’m nuking myself daily with 1000mg of vitamin C in the hopes that might save me. I will not get sick!!!!

P.S. Only 49 days till I’m back in Michigan.

For the weekend of March 11-12, I plan on visiting Tokyo, leaving JCMU immediately following the Friday Project on March 10 and taking the JR trains in the direction of Tokyo (end destination still undetermined). The trip will last at least 7 hours but because we will be using the Seishun 18 ticket (which we can split one or each have our own), and it will only cost 2300 yen. Once in the Tokyo area, I intend to visit Kamakura to see the Daibutsu, Akihabara to do some shopping and general wandering around, making brief stops at the 3 Hard Rock Cafe’s in the area (maybe), but otherwise I have nothing planned. I am thinking of maybe staying overnight at a ryokan/onsen in Hakone (outside of Tokyo and close to Mt. Fuji). To get back to JCMU, I am tentatively planning on taking the ‘Midnight Nagara’, a night train that runs from Tokyo station to Nagoya station, which you can use the Seishun 18 ticket on. That or I will take the Shinkansen back late Sunday night.

Applicants can forward their resume to…..my comments box.

Thank you Hard Rock Cafe. I’ve been on the fence in the past week attempting to figure out where I should travel to in my last month in Japan, especially where I should go for the upcoming ’student directed fieldtrip’. Well today, HRC was so helpful and sent me an email to say that they were having a sale on their merchandise, and because I’m a HRC Member Card holder, I can get in on the sale. So, going to visit the website to see what exactly was on sale, I noticed that they’ve put out a whole new pin series, and this time the theme is cherry blossoms!! They go on sale March 1, the same day that I will again be able to use the Seishun 18 tickets. So thank you HRC, you’ve helped me figure out where I’ll go on a Friday afternoon. And thanks again, for helping me decide to go to Tokyo for the student directed fieldtrip.

Now, before you think I’ve finally lost it, I had already been thinking of going back to Tokyo again in March. “But you were there for an entire week in December”, you might be saying. Well, the only place I actually want to go to *in* Tokyo is Akihabara, the electronics and anime district of Tokyo. The saying is that if you’re looking for something electronic and you can’t find it in Akihabara, it doesn’t exist. I also really want to go to Kamakura, which features the second largest Daidutsu in Japan (the first largest being in Nara), and was once the capital of Japan, as well as travel to somewhere north of Tokyo that I haven’t been to yet (Nikko? Niigata?). I’m also slightly pondering going to an onsen somewhere, preferably where there are as few people as possible and with good scenery. The only hard thing about planning out trips for next month is that for my Japanese Culture and Civilization we have 4 fieldtrips and they are all on Saturdays in March, which really cramps my traveling style. When I make concrete plans I’ll write about it….

While randomly surfing the net yesterday, I stumped upon Japan-Guide.com, a site I’ve used in the past to look up information on various potential travel locations in Japan. It just so happened that I looked up information on the Seishun 18 ticket (which, you may or may not remember, I used very extensively during the month of December, and saved a ton of money), and found out that I can buy the Seishun 18 ticked AGAIN for the month of March going all the way until April 10!!! I am so excited now! I can finish off my last full month in this country with a ton of cheap traveling to every place I haven’t made it to yet!! Now where shall I go first……

Ok, so its been quite a while since I’ve updated my blog, not because nothing has happened around here, but because its been actually fairly busy and I just haven’t had time to be blogging. So, here’s what’s been happening since last week:

Saturday February 11 was the first of 4(?) field trips for my Japanese Cultures and Civilization classes, and for our first trip we would be visiting Nara, which would be third trip there (in 3 years in fact). The whole class had to be on the bus at the god-awful hour of 8am on a Saturday morning, which had put a damper on the previous night’s poker match. Piling onto the bus, on the way there I mostly sat and chatted with Brian while off and on reading ‘Dave Barry Does Japan’ (an EXCELLENT book) to a couple more of the bus’ occupants (who I hoped I was entertaining as opposed to annoying). When we got to Nara around 11am, we all had to get through the gates at Todaiji with Dr. Johnson, but afterwards we were able to just wander as we pleased until it was time to meet back up at the bus. Mostly everyone was having a lot of fun with the deer, whom I decided to be nice to and buy some more deer cakes for this time. Spent the next couple of hours wandering around inside of Todaiji temple again, photographing a lot of my fellow students trying to go through the hole in one of the gigantic pillars holding up the temple, the size of which is supposedly the same as the nostril of the giant Buddha. (If you can fit through the hole, it is said that you will reach enlightenment faster….or something like that.) I asked one of the monks/priests/religious dudes sitting in the little booth near the door selling charms exactly when the window on the temple, that when open you can see the face of the giant Buddha, would be open next (since I’ve always wanted to see it open but its always closed when I come), and he told me the only two days were New Years Day and also a day in August for the fire festival. So, it looks like I should have come taken Nick to Nara on New Years instead of going to Kyoto….oh well. Leaving Todaiji, I wandered around Nara with some other people (students and Dr. Johnson) for a while, visiting a few shrines that I had and hadn’t already been to. Eventually it was getting close to the time we had to get back to the bus, and we were all getting hungry, so we stopped by the closest restaurant that we could find, where EVERYONE (there was maybe 7 or 8 of us) besides me and Brian had tenpura udon.

After food, we had to all get back to the bus, and were soon on our way to stop #2 of the day, which was Horyuji temple. I was excited to go to Horyuji because I hadn’t been there yet, and I had just seen a rendition of it built entirely out of snow a week prior in Sapporo (of which you can see a neat comparison shot here). Horyuji is one of the oldest temples in Japan, and may be the oldest women structure in the world. It was first built in 607 CE, when Buddhism was still very new in Japan. In burned down in 670, but then was rebuilt in the 6th century. The statues and frescos inside of the main temple building are some of the oldest Buddhist imagery in the country, and it really very clearly shows the Chinese, Korean, and Indian influences on Buddhism before it took root in the country. I was walking through the main temple building with Dr. Johnson, who told me that in the several other times that he had come to this temple, the main building with all of its statues and paintings had never been open to the public before, which it was today. The statues inside were incredibly old and the frescoes on the walls were really deteriorated but you could still faintly see them, despite there being no artificial light inside and you had to stand way back behind a metal screen. Next door to the main temple building was a 5-story pagoda, which you couldn’t go in because it seemed as though the inside of it was completely filled with giant wooden carvings, that came all the way out to the doors leaving no space inside, of different scenes involving the life of the Buddha. There wasn’t much else to the temple complex except for another building open on one side, with some more larger Buddha statues inside of it.

The one thing that I felt while wandering around this temple was how much I wish that I could go to a temple in Japan at some point, and have it be incredibly quiet and peaceful, without other person there at all. Every temple or shine that I have been to in Japan, there have always been a lot of other people milling around, being tourists just like I am, taking pictures, talking to each other, generally making noise. If that doesnt happen, then the temple or shrine is near some busy street or maybe train line. There are just so many people in Japan that sometime when I go to a place like Todaiji (which, I think might be one of my favorite places to visit in Japan), that you can just be there and reflect on the fact that you are standing inside the largest wooden structure in the world, with a 45ft-tall statue of Buddha, the tallest in Japan, right in front of you. I’d not Buddhist, Christian, or any other religion, and I don’t believe in god or an afterlife, but just looking at something that was built 1400 years ago is profound. I don’t think that while I’m here I’ll ever have a chance to go to some area in Japan where there are no people, just because the only way that I can travel in this country is through mass transit, which by nature, certainly wont be connected to areas of the country where there are no people (and, quite frankly, besides the mountains, I’m pretty sure there aren’t any areas left in Japan that aren’t inhabited). Maybe I’ll have to plan a trip to Mt. Hiei (location of the main temple of Tendai Buddhism, where you can sleep overnight in the monastery) or somewhere else for the near future.

When I got done wandering the temple, I met with the other gakusei-tachi (students) and I had some incredibly bizarre pineapple ice cream, which was somewhat of a mix between ice cream and sherbet but with chunks of pineapple. We also shopped in the trinket stores, but didn’t buy much. Made our way back to the bus by 3pm, and were on our way back to JCMU. Unfortunately, since it was now rush hour in Nara and Kyoto, it took us 3 hours to get back as opposed to the 2 that it took for us to get to Nara in the morning. Spent the trip entertaining ourselves with more Dave Barry Does Japan, and eventually I broke out my MRE and decided I’d cook up part of it just for the heck of it, right on the bus. That entertained a few people, but ultimately the grilled chicken breast entree turned out to be the least delicious of all the MRE’s I’ve eaten to date. Luckily the gasses that it emits while cooking, despite setting off the ‘gas leak’ alarm in my room every time I don’t lock it in the bathroom while its cooking, didn’t asphyxiate us all on the way back home.

Pictures from the trip:

More Todaiji pictures, and Mae trying to get to enlightenment faster than the rest of us….:

More things from around Todaiji (the second picture is of this circular rock that you could turn, almost like a Tibetan prayer wheel; I’ve actually never seen anything like this before in Japan):

Horyuji:

Getting back to JCMU around 6pm, there were tentative plans to go do karaoke along with Brian, Scott, Michael, Keith and Steve. Now, quite basically, I can’t sing. There was a point in my life where I could, in fact, sing fairly well (or, I thought fairly well) and where I was actually in a school *choir*. However, my one previous experience of karaoke in Japan had come to me as quite a shock to learn that I suck at singing. I’m sure you’re thinking “oh, everyone sucks at karaoke, thats why its fun!”, however I guess I’m way too concerned about what people think about me (because, naturally, my inability to sing will translate into people thinking that I’m a horrible human being right??? not a logical argument, I know…). So it was with some trepidation that I joined them on their trip to Paru, the best karaoke place in Hikone that is mercifully very close to JCMU. When we got there, since Brian and I were the ‘highest’ on the Japanese class level totem-pole, its kind of the unspoken and unconscious thing when in a group to have those people do all the translating/talking to Japanese people (hey, I’ve done it….especially when I’d travel with Cassidy (sorry Cassidy! ), just figuring that if there was ever a problem she’d probably know what they were saying more than me), so we were given the task of trying to figure out which ‘type’ of karaoke room we wanted (I had no idea there were different kinds, and even now I really couldn’t tell you how they are different). After much flailing of arms and pointing at pictures, since I had the JCMU address memorized (everyone else there is a new student this semester) I filled out a few forms, and now I’m an official member of Paru! (Oh joy! Another card to add to my collection.) We were shown to our room and given a little basket with some microphones and washcloths, because of course, you can’t do karaoke with dirty hands. We started out on some easy English songs, lots of Queen and 80’s music especially, and after a while I even tried some Japanese songs (only songs that I knew fairly well however) with some of them being successes, and others not so successful. As time went on, we were about to reach our 2 hour limit when someone went out to inquire on how much an extra hour would cost. Turns out that if you bought this little package for 1500yen per person, you could be there until 3am and would get a free drink, which was cheaper than paying for 3 hours ala cart. So, after setting on that we continued to sing for I don’t know how much longer, with several members of our group having to leave to go back to their home stays. For my free drink I thought I’d get what everyone else was getting, a beer. That was a mistake. Until then I had only has as much as a shot glass full of beer, so despite Brian switching his darker beer with me (which, did taste less bad than what I had previously, but still tasted really bad) I wasn’t able to finish it. I guess I’ll stick to the colorful drinks with pretty names in the future. Around 11:30pm or so we finally decided to call it a night, and Brian rode off to catch his train, and Scott, Michael and I rode back to JCMU. All in all, it wasn’t as embarrassing as I figured it would be. Yeah, I sounded horrible, but oh well. Would I go back? Maybe if there was a big group going…..but since I am a ‘member’ now, who knows.

Karaoke (hehe….turn about is fair play for these pictures ):

That following week, nothing really exciting occurred other than the fact that I was insanely busy with class and class work. The grade on my latest test was the exact same grade as 2 of the 3 other tests I have taken, which I’m not even sure what the odds are of that since its not like I’m purposely trying to do horrible. So, I had a talk with my teacher, and it turned out to be not quite as scary as I imagined it would be. She told me to work on one part of the test by circling all the particles (a Japanese part of speech) in these dialogues that we have to remember for class. Well, come study day (our test was on Thursday this week instead of Friday, the reason for which I will soon elaborate on), I tried my hardest to keep on task and study hard, including the things that were pointed out to me that I should focus on. I kept my computer turned off for most of the time, and I think thanks to the 2 class periods worth of review before taking the test, that I did really well on this one. Now, granted, each test I take I feel relatively confident coming out of it and am always surprised to find the opposite, but with this test I actually finished *early*, something I have yet to do this semester (in fact, most of the tests I haven’t been able to finish). Getting back to my room and having lunch, I did some cleaning and waited for 3:30pm to come, when Youko would be stopping by for the first time since the great roommate debacle. We exchanged some Valentine’s Day gifts (2 days late), chatted for a while, and then I told her that I was gonna go to Caines later in the day, and she said she needed to do some shopping as well, so she gave me a ride there (which was great, because it was raining!). I picked up a bunch of food for the tenpura ‘party’ that I would be having for lunch tomorrow.

Friday morning came around, and despite not having a test or class, I had to come to the academic building by 8:50am to once again partake in the ‘Friday Project’ that involves visiting a local elementary school. I think out of all the Friday Projects, its probably one of the most enjoyable. Last semester I went to an elementary school that was quite a ways from JCMU, and where I played traditional Japanese games with 2nd and 4th graders. This time around, I would be playing ‘winter’ games and listening to some singing and self-introductions from two classes of 2nd graders. When we got to the school (there were 4 of us altogether), we were ushered into the principal’s office first for some tea and questions, and then a group of 2nd grades came and led us by the hand to their classroom, where they first sang us a song and then we split into ground and listened to their self-introductions. Then we played a board game, whose name I don’t now (it was kinda like Candy Land only with dice instead of cards). After the game was over we were led to the gym for a game of dodge ball! I don’t think I’ve played dodge ball for a good 10+ years, but it was hilarious to play it with 50+ 2nd graders. My team ended up winning (woo!) and I think there was only one kid that god hurt and started to cry….I can see how dodge ball can become an incredibly violent game. After that was over we were led into 2nd grade class #2 for more singing, self-introductions and more board games! These kids were so full of energy, it was amazing. I certainly cant remember being that way all of 14 years ago (that makes me feel old). Eventually it was around 11:30am and we were ushered out of the classroom and out to the door where our cab was waiting for us. (Interestingly enough, in the doorway of this school, there was a framed poster titled ‘Ann Arbor and the Rest of the World’ which I thought was incredibly cool.)

Getting back to JCMU around noon, I went back to my room and cleaned up a bit to prepare for the tenpura party. I had pretty much invited all the people I had done karaoke with to come, and while I did ask everyone to bring something to contribute, it just ended up that I pretty much bought some extra food then already had all the tenpura stuff in my room since I’ve made it several times before. But, the last time I had a tenpura ‘party’ it was just me and Cassidy, and we had a pretty fun time making it, so I was looking forward to making some more. I had satsumaimo (sweet potatoes), shrimp, kabucha (pumpkin), and chikuwa (actually I don’t even know what this is…but its good), so I divided up the tasks (cutting veggies, shelling shrimp, etc) among all the participants and the started to make tenpura. In the past the hardest thing for me to get right has always been the thickness of the batter. The directions tell you to kinda do a 2 parts powder to 3 parts water mix, however if you make it a little more watery it will make the end result more fluffy and crunchy. Though, I’ve yet to discover how they get the tenpura to be so crunchy in restaurants. So, I would make a bath of tenpura and then sit down to eat it with all the guys (side note: I basically have no girl friends here this semester oh well..), make another batch, and so on. Brian poured everyone some umeshu (plum wine) with hot water, something he had learned from his host family, and it turned out to be very enjoyable that way. Scott made some french fries as well at one point, which were very tasty. In the end I hope that everyone had fun, and maybe learned how to make tenpura a little bit.

Following the tenpura lunch, the ‘homeless’ (Keith and Brian have home stays, so have no where to go for lunch, so they sometimes come to my room to make their lunch/hang around/etc) stayed around in my room for a while to chat, and eventually we decided to head out, by bike, for a store called Book-Off that is WAY THE HECK away from JCMU. Thursday night I just got this idea in my head that I really wanted to play Guitar Freaks, and this particular Book-Off (its basically a used book store, but it has an arcade on the second floor) has a version of Guitar Freaks (version 7) with my favorite song to play, Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’ (yeah…its a Japanese game…but it has that song). So, after a 30 minute bike ride up two very large hills, the three of us finally get to the Book-Off only to find….they’ve upgraded to Guitar Freaks 8!! Noooooooooo. :( Having no choice, I played that version for a while, then moved onto games like Typing of the Dead and Pop’n Music. Eventually Keith had to go back to his home stay, so then it was just Brian and I taking turns playing the somehwat addicting game of Pop’n Music. When we got tired of that, we shopped around on the first floor for a while, then rode our bikes to the nearby Viva City to see if they possibly had this Region 2 DVD I’ve been attempting to buy from all the major Japanese DVD stores online, without luck. Naturally, they didn’t have it at the mall either, but we ended up having some dinner and then playing in yet another arcade. Now, here’s something that I just don’t understand. Friday night, the mall is completely dead. That, and it closes at 9pm. 9pm??!? Neither Brian nor I can figure out exactly what it is that Japanese people do on a Friday night to have fun, since the trains stop running in most places around midnight. In fact when we eventually made started heading back to JCMU/Hikone station, the roads were totally deserted, and it was only about 11:30pm.

Anyway, after playing even more Pop’n Music, we figured we’d ride back along the way back to JCMU and see if we could find anything fun to do. There is this giant store that is famous among the JCMUers called Liquor Mountain. Supposedly, you can buy absinthe there, which is apparently not illegal in Japan. So, it was only about 9:30pm by this point so we figured a giant liquor store, on a Friday night, HAD to be open, right? WRONG. They closed at 8pm!!! Luckily, right across the street, was a little dessert/coffee/drink cafe that I had been to once previously along with Cassidy and her conversation partner. So we parked our bikes and were about to go in when I spotted this huge book store/DVD rental place. Thinking that maybe, just maybe, they’d have this DVD I was trying to buy, we went inside. Well, they didn’t have it to buy, but I could rent it!! Their selection of anime DVDs and other DVDs to rent was incredibly ginormous, and now I really wish I had visited this place like 6 months ago when I first got here. Ended up renting two DVDs, and then we finally headed over to the cafe where we sat and enjoyed a drink each, and then had to leave because the place closed at midnight. (I can’t wait to get back to Ann Arbor where I can go have dessert at La Dolce Vida until 2am and then wander down to Pizza House and sit around until they close at 4am.)

Finally getting back on our bikes and heading for home, we parted ways near Hikone station and I then spent the next 20 minutes riding back to JCMU in the pitch blackness at midnight because the light on my bike DOES NOT WORK despite the fact that I recently paid to have it repaired. Riding a bike in the pitch blackness in the US would be totally out of the question, but even in Japan which is a comparatively much safer country, I can’t say I’m very comfortable with the idea. Monday morning I will be having a talk with the office to get the bike repair man to come back and do a better job this time (hopefully).

Brian playing Pop’n Music:

Saturday I pretty much stayed in the dorms all day, doing laundry and other things. Watched one of the DVDs that I rented, and despite not having any English subtitles, I was able to understand quite a bit of it. Also had a particularly frightening experience when I was just attempting to make a salad. I’m cutting up the head of lettuce thats been in my fridge for a week, and sudden a FRICKING HUGE SPIDER just falls right out of it. I just about had a heart attack. After flushing him down the toilet I then had the dilema of deciding if I really wanted that salad…..ended up cutting off the area where the spider fell out, and washing the rest of the lettuce just to be safe. Later in the evening, played poker, euchre, go fish (hehe) and uno a bit with Scott, Michael and Keith before watching movie #2, of which I could understand maybe 25% of without English subtitles (the thing was like a Tom Clancy novel animated, luckily I’ve watched it before but even with subtitles its incredibly difficult to follow what’s going on if you aren’t really paying attention.) Finally finished the movie early Sunday morning, and now I’m sitting here writing this post, after which I have to ride all the way back to the rental place to return my movies. So that’s (basically) it for the past week!