Kyoto, Day 2: Legends of the Golden Temple!

Kyoto, Day 2, started out with a trip to Kinkaku-ji, the picturesque garden and gold laced temple that arguably tops the list of most popular tourist attractions in Japan. A walk down the road to two other temple complexes lead to many beautiful moss covered gardens, duck ponds, tall pagodas, combed rock gardens, and cold wooden mansions of the Kyoto elite of old.  Check out the pictures on Picassa, which look better than the ones on Facebook.

Kyoto, Day 1

Unexciting title, but descriptive.

No real trip could start without at least one morning where you wake up before six, drag yourself out in the cold, and 'catch' a series of trains and buses to your destination.  That's what happened this morning when Sam (my traveling companion/JCF small group leader) and I woke up in his cold apartment and dragged ourselves outside to the bus stop.  Though most of the winter weather I've experienced so far in Japan has been fairly pitiable compared to even Mid-Atlantic winters, the weather has been about freezing since Christmas Eve, when snow started to fall around various parts of southern Japan.  

Luckily, after the bumpy bus ride through central Nagasaki, we boarded a very comfy JR express train to Fukuoka, the place where I studied abroad and the place where we'd meet Sam's friend Sayaka and board the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto.

Kyoto:  not a city I am familiar with, nor a city that I had researched adequately before coming here.  All of us had a 'let's figure it out when we get there' attitude, and although we got to see some cool stuff in our first day, we also spent a lot of time being lost and walking very long distances to places we thought were right around the corner.  There was a probably times when it was my fault, but oh well.  All of us know more about the layout of East Kyoto now.

No laundry listing here: go ahead and check out the facebook/picassa albums.   The only cool part which didn't make the photo list was the interior of one temple that featured 1000 statues life-sized wooden statues of the Buddha surrounding a Giant metal buddha.  Check out the wikipedia article for Sanjusangen.

Merry Christmas! Dec 23-25

久しぶり！御無沙汰！That means ‘long time no see.’  My deepest apologies for not updating this blog.  Though the newness of my home in Japan has worn off, the adventures haven’t stopped.  I’m picking this up again as I set out for my winter break vacation: Kyoto!  I’ve bought a new camera to record my experiences (Sony Cybershot DSC-HX5V, king of digital still cameras), and I’m committed to showing pics and posting on my blog more often.  

I’ll start by telling you how I spent my Christmas season in Amakusa.  I apologize for some parts of it which sound very ‘list-y’ and not very narrative, but I have a lot to cover.  

All this month, I’ve been teaching my 1st-4th grade elementary school students about Christmas, showing them pictures of home with the Christmas tree and snow, explaining how we bake cookies for Santa, describing how Santa fills the stockings (or shoes, in some countries) and the space under the tree with presents, and singing “We wish you a Merry Christmas” (most repetitive lyrics, so easiest to learn).

Even with the little bits of holiday cheer in class, I still wasn’t feeling the Christmas spirit without a Christmas tree, (really) cold weather outside, freshly-baked cookies, and time spent at home with family and friends.   This much I anticipated, so I was set to make sure Christmas weekend was well spent doing Christmas related activities:

To start, on Thursday I had a day off (Emperor’s Birthday=public holiday) to make mochi with some neighbors, BBQ in the back yard, and drink warm sake out of a bamboo mug.  Check ‘making mochi’ and ‘drinking before 11 AM’ off the bucket list...   I’ll try to upload a video of the mochi-pounding process so that you can understand.  Basically you use giant wooden hammers to mash up freshly cooked sticky rice, then use flour and mold the rice gluten into patties.  You can put stuff inside if you want (sweet jam), put it in soup, or grill it and eat it with soy sauce and nori.

Friday was the last day of the second semester for all the schools, so my middle school had a long ceremony in the day where lots of speeches were made and awards were handed out.  I only had one class that day, my second year class.   While we did half a class of the standard textbook work, we spent the second half doing a Christmas cross word puzzle and listening to my America christmas music.  Santa hats were worn and fun was had.  After school, I skipped the 2 hour long teachers’ meeting (probably a faux pax, but they never talk about stuff relevant to me...) and went and worked out with my middle school baseball team.  Afterwards, I ran over to 大江 Ooe, the village with all the Catholics, where my elementary school kids were dressed up in little christmas elf/santa claus outfits singing Christmas carols outside in the freezing cold.   After the concert, there was a candle light procession up to the church for mass.  It was the first time I had seen the church completely filled up, and the first time that there was a choir to lead the congregation in worship.  A good deal of my middle school boys were up at the altar as altar servers, dressed up in white robes.  After church, I found another one of my student’s parents that has pretty good English.   So far, both of the mothers that I’ve met that speak English have very, very cute elementary school children.  Connection?

Again, sorry for the list-y-ness.  I could have chosen to describe very poetically the freezing march up to the church with our candles and the warm atmosphere of the church interior filled with little children, parents, grandparents, and even some high schoolers.  But I have to plow through to Christmas Day:

Waking up on Christmas day, I saw snow falling outside my window!  Already a present from Santa, and without a Christmas tree! Driving 3 hours to the city, I enjoyed ‘receiving’ more Christmas presents at Best Denki, the Best Buy of Japan, where I picked up a new Sony Cybershot DSC-HX5V (featuring 10x optical zoom, 20x digital zoom, instant sweep panorama shots, and built in GPS).  This will be the tool which I will use to record many more Japan adventures, and I’ve already posted pictures from my trip to Nagasaki today.  Go ahead and check them out on Picassa through the link at the top of the page!