Photos are now all uploaded
Since the last two evenings we didn’t have wireless in our rooms at the hotel… I had to wait until I came home to upload my remaining photos. They are now all up on my site – http://photos.cathoffman.com/Japan_March_2008/
I will make one last blog post about various random things I noticed in Japan that you all might find interesting… but will do that later when I have time to retreive it from my PDA.
March 10th
This morning we left the hotel at 8:30am and walked to a cafe on the
way to our first destination. I had an iced lemon tea, thick toast
with butter, and a hot dog with what I think was cabbage. After that
we walked to the Kyoto Handicraft Center where we were all able to
finish the remainder of our souvenier shopping. I found some really
neat gifts and the only thing I got for myself was a business card
holder which fits in my purse to prevent my cards from getting damaged
before I give them out. The other things I purchased include gifts for
some of you who read these emails so I can’t write about those items.
After shopping I left with Blain, Phil, and Dannielle. We made a pit
stop at the hotel then headed via train to Kansai Gaidai University to
pass out more surveys for our research. While there we also ate lunch
at the cafeteria on campus. I am well below where I’d liked to have
gotten survey wise but I’ll make do with with what I have. To clarify
I’m some where between 40-50 surveys and would prefer to be closer to
the 70-100 range but time to do surveys has been sparse.
After finishing up at Kansai Gaidai I left the group (yes by myself)
and took the Keihan line train back to Sanjo station. Having grown up
with the LIRR and NYC metro systems taking public transportation
around here has never daunted me. As long as I know which direction
I’m going and my destination I can use my reading skills to get me
where I need to be. Although for some people it might be terrifying to
be alone on a train in a place like Japan I find it very relaxing.
That also reminds me of how much I enjoy getting to apply my Japanese
this time around. Last time I came to Japan my Japanese was at a very
low level and only occaisionally useful but this time I’ve been able
to use it much more often. Last night I returned to the hotel and used
my Japanese to figure out which rooms were ours and who was supposed
to be in which room. When we are with Kansai Gaidai students I use it
in regular conversation for practice. It has also come in handy when
reading menus and my classmates need to know what foods a place
offers.
Once I was reunited with Jeni, Gwen, and Jenna we went to the manga
store where I picked up the latest volume of School Rumble. Then we
went to the super market and got our supplies of snacks for the train
and plane home. Then it was time for dinner and we found a hole in the
wall joint with yakisoba and okonomiyaki. Dinner was so cheap that we
were able to afford more fantastic crepes for dessert. Then it was
finally time for karaoke so we booked a room for 90 minutes with
unlimited drinks. I had some mixed drink first but then lots of melon
soda the rest of the time. We eventually located songs from Phantom of
the Opera which were fully translated into Japanese. It was quite
amusing reading certain parts where many Japanese words were squeezed
into a few notes.
We are back at the hotel now and Jeni and I are about to go do the
amazing public bath (round 2). This is likely my last email before we
fly home tomorrow…I will resume uploading photos back in the states
though today was shockingly low at 20 or so but I have way more from
yesterday. Then again today was things I’d seen before and it rained
in the morning so that explains a bit too.
-Cat
March 9th Part 2
For dinner we had curry (Japanese style of course, not like Indian
style). I had tonkatsu, my favorite which is pork over curry. After
that we took three trains, all on one stop legs, to get to Potoncho
and Gion where we walked through the back of the streets and near the
older style houses where they have restaurants, bars, and tea houses.
No geisha sighting occurred however.
Afterwards we returned to our hotel, and Jeni and I headed down to the
public bath. It was so nice to just sit and soak with the running
water and mini waterfall by the window view… with steam just
everywhere. The bath of course is excessively warm though so we
couldn’t stay very long. The shower there though did finally get my
hair to feel fully clean, so that was definitely a plus. At our last
hotel I kept feeling like my hair was still not quite clean but no
such feeling this morning.
Today is our last full day so first we will be going to the Kyoto
Handicraft Center (a mecca for tourist gifts), then Blain, Phil and I
will be going back to Kansai Gaidai University to finish doing more of
our surveys with the students there, and then I will return to Kyoto
while others go to Osaka to do dinner and karaoke in Kyoto. The
students going to Osaka are going to go to Hard Rock Café, so you can
see why on my last night in Japan I’d rather stay with the half of a
group that is going to be doing authentic Japanese things.
Should be an exciting day!
-Cat
March 9th Part 1
This morning started off with finishing up packing (while I watched
the play by play of the Valpo men’s basketball game, since I couldn’t
watch the video thanks to ESPN filming the game)… then after finding
out that we had lost, I headed downstairs with my luggage to check
out. We then all headed to Kyoto station, and took the subway over to
Karasuma-oike stop, walked a few more blocks with our luggage (the
favorite part being when I nearly had an asthma attack carrying my two
heavy bags up the many stairs from the subway to street level) and
then we finally arrived in Hotel Nishiyama where we will be staying
for the remainder of our visit in Japan. This place is a traditional
style Japanese ryokan. Sliding doors abound, there are yukata to wear
when you are getting ready in the evening, you can take a public bath
(which Jeni and I will be doing this evening since they are amazing…
you shower first on these small stalls facing the wall, then get into
the actual bath once you’re clean and just soak in super warm water,
it is fantastic, I am looking forward to it!) Anyway, we couldn’t
actually check in that early, so they gave us tags and we put our room
numbers on our luggage and left it in the lobby for them to bring up
later once the rooms were vacant and cleaned. This again goes back to
the concept of Japan being a very safe country as I doubt anyone would
do such a thing in America.
We then headed back to the subway and took it to the Kaegi station
three stops down. We got off here and met up with our Kansai Gaidai
students that were helping us out, today there were three of them. One
of the boys who was helping out today will be studying abroad in
Valparaiso next year, his name is Ken. From here we went to Nanzenji
temple as well as had the type of meal which monks traditionally have.
It is vegetarian, complete with radish, lots and lots of tofu, rice,
yams, and more tofu. Most of it was pretty good, I enjoyed the
experience. After that we walked around Nanzenji for a little while.
We then split up at this point, with Gwen going back to the hotel,
Jenna, Jeni, and Dannielle went to Uji (to see places that are famous
from being mentioned in The Tale of Genji, which Jenna is researching…
as well as to get some tea which Uji is known for) and the rest of us
went to Fushimi Inari Taisha. Fushimi Inari is a place you all might
recognize from the movie Memoirs of a Geisha. The scene where she is
a little girl running through hundreds of red tori gates was filmed at
Fushimi Inari. Basically this place is a giant hill with an oval
shaped hike all the way to the top of the mountain and back, with lots
of shrines along the way. There are also tons of fox gods everywhere
too, which Fushimi Inari is also known for. I am proud to say that
Cana and I walked all the way up to the top and back around to the
bottom. On the way down we kept looking at the steps and wondering how
we had managed to survive climbing so many steps up to the top. I have
a great sense of accomplishment from making it up there with her. Phil
and two of the Kansai Gaidai students also made it all the way to the
top, but they weren’t hiking it with us so we never saw them on the
path. Elyse and Prof. Pati however chose not to complete the path to
the top and stopped about half way through on the way up.
Right now I am in the hotel waiting for the rest of the group to get
back from Uji so that we can go to dinner. It saddens me to say that
the wireless is only downstairs in the lobby… so no uploading of
pictures will occur until we return in the states… I am sorry to
disappoint!!
-Cat
March 8th, Kinkakuji and Nara
This morning we started by meeting 4 Kansai Gaidai university students at the Kyoto Station (they had volunteered to help us out). We then took the bus to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. I got many awesome and amazing photos and then we took the bus back to Kyoto Station. There we went up to the 11th floor and had tempura and udon for lunch. We then took a train to Nara to meet Kaori (who is presently studying abroad at VU but home at Nara for spring break). She met us at the station and walked us through Nara machi (town shopping areas and older Nara), Koshin Jinja (a shrine that was in the backyard of an old style house), and we ended the evening by seeing Omizutori which is a celebration welcoming spring in at one of the bigger temples in Nara where they light about 10 massive torches. There were just tons and tons of people there so it was very hard to see as we were stuck really far away but it was cool to watch from afar. I did get to take some really awesome pictures of plum blossoms with the help of my flash at the end though since we were standing near a plum blossom tree. Then we took the train back to Kyoto Station, had ramen at the 10th floor of the station, and returned to our hostel.
We are finishing up packing now since we are switching to a nicer hotel, a ryokan (traditional Japanese style hotel) tomorrow for the next two nights. So this is the last night I share a room with Gwen and Jenna since I am going to be staying in Jeni (Prof. Prough’s) room at the ryokan. I’m very excited about the next hotel since it has a public bath and Jeni and I are totally using it for some good relaxation in the evening. The other things on the plan for tomorrow are a special lunch at some temple… climbing Fushimi Inari (the scene in Memoirs of a Geisha where young version of Saiyuri runs through the hundreds of orange tori gates was filmed at Fushimi Inari Taisha)… then in the evening after dinner we will walk through Gion, one of the most famous Geisha districts… so tomorrow should be a very pretty day.
Tokyo!!!!!!!!!
So today we took a three hour Shinkansen ride to Toyko!!!
First we made a pit stop at the tourist information center to get maps and find out what theater was playing tonight.
Then a pit stop at the book store for a better map of Tokyo.
Then we headed to a Kaiten Sushi (rotating, aka conveyor belt, sushi place… where they charge per plate and plate prices vary by color of the plate). Had some good sushi there before we headed out. We then walked to Harajuku, which is known for it’s fashion and women that go there often have rather interesting outfits on. I got some fun pictures. We had fantastic crepes there as well… this time I got one that had vanilla ice cream, strawberries, a thin slice of cheesecake, and whip cream inside. It was quite delicious.
After we had wandered around Harajuku for a while we hopped on another subway over to Yasakuni Jinja, the shrine commemorating the war criminals that died. We got to see their exhibit about the past and leading up to the war, though had to cut the last part out since we started running out of time. I got this really awesome sakura (cherry blossom) souvenier from the gift shop at the shrine… they are sakura blossoms from the shrine preserved permanently in glass (or plastic? I’d have to check) they are just stunning. I got myself a nice round large one for my desk at work.
After we left there we headed to Kabuki! They have a special for us foreigners where we get to pay and sit up in the highest seats and see just one act, so we saw the most well known scene Gozonji Suzugamori… it was really funny since at one point the scene is supposed to have the moon go away and it be pitch black and then the main guy fights all these hoodlums who are having troubles seeing in the dark and it’s very comical as he cuts off their butt, their leg, their arm, their nose in a very dramatic amusing prop sort of way. It was pretty awesome getting to see some authentic Kabuki.
After that we went to dinner at a place called “To the Herbs” it was Japanese Italian. I had some penne pasta and Japanese style garlic bread… also a nice strawberry royal drink as they called it. It was good but tiny.
We then walked down Ginza street… and headed back to the Shinkansen for our 3 hour train ride back to Kyoto.
Tomorrow we’re off to see more temples and shrines in the morning, then in the afternoon we will go to Nara and spend it with Kaori (who is presently studying abroad with us at VU, but is home for Spring Break).
-Cat Hoffman
Himeji Photo
Our tour guide took this awesome photo of the group on my camera:
Himeji
Today we took the Shinkansen to Himeji. From there we met two women volunteer tour guides. Jeni said that they are normally housewives who volunteer to give tours for free (we just pay for their transportation) as a way to get out of the house and practice their English. They took us on the bus to the Ropeway which was a cable car that took us up the mountain and towards the base of Engyouji Shrine. We then hiked up the mountain all over the place to see the wonderful sites of the shrine… some spots of which included places where they filmed the Last Samurai!!! You’ll recognize those places when you look at my photos. After walking all over we hiked back down, took the Ropeway back down and then took the bus back to Himeji Castle.
Himeji castle is one of the most recognizable and well known rebuilt castles of Japan. It is quite beautiful, and its grounds are home to a million sakura (cherry blossom) trees…which of course aren’t in blossom until next month. We walked around the grounds and inside the castle as well. No shoes allowed inside of course, but they did provide us with temporary slippers and a plastic bag to carry our shoes around with. The stairs their were really awkward way too small and close together, and there were lots of beams to duck your head under if you were any taller than me (aka my height was perfect lol).
After that we had “linner” aka lunch / dinner since our tour guides didn’t realize that we should eat in the middle of our tour day… we had fabulous ramen with gyouza and rice.
Then we took the Shinkansen back to Kyoto.
Phil went with me to Bic Camera and we looked over the displays for Canon and Nikons there (again, this place is like Yodobashi Camera in that it sells all sorts of electronics, not just cameras) Anyhoo so I went and looked at the displays, got some pictures, and then purchased two Photography Magazines so I could see how they advertise inside of Japanese magazines.
I also looked at camera backpacks because the one Joel got me for Christmas, while a fantastic bag for anything but travel, has been murder to my back…but the one that I found which would be awesome to use is the Lowepro Slingshot 300 AW… (it feels like heaven when I tried it out in the store)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/468610-REG/Lowepro_35017_SlingShot_300_AW_Bag.html -> this is the camera I looked at…
However, not the price on the B&H site…and note that at Bic Camera it is being sold for 16,100 yen… which roughly is about 158 or so dollars… yeah a bit of a huge jump in price to what I could get it back home for.
Alas, I did not buy it… though was seriously tempted. Tomorrow we’re off to Tokyo, I’m going to try to strip down any camera parts I won’t use in the big city and we’ll survive somehow.
Anyoo very excited about Tokyo tomorrow!!! Off to bed now 
-Cat Hoffman
Himeji
I Climbed The Stairs of Himeji Castle!
Jenna
March 5th – Hiroshima & Miyajima (Itsukushima Shrine)
Today I rode on the Shinkansen for the first time. (The bullet train that goes ridiculously fast for those who don’t know) We had to meet downstairs at 7:45, walk to the station, reserve seats on the train (free with our passes, but can’t reserve the seats until the morning of the train ride) and then our train left at 8:22. It was about a 2 hour train ride from Kyoto Station to Hiroshima Station on the train.
From there we took a trolley, which felt like a bus on trolley tracks since there were no open windows or anything, to the Hiroshima A-Bomb Dome. We walked around there for a while, then headed to the Hiroshima Peace Park, then to the Hiroshima Peace Museum. The museum took a while and was very interesting with lots of facts about the survivors and relics from the destruction. After that we had lunch at a Japanese Italian place, I had some great Japanese style past with shrimp and scallops and a red sauce. It was really funny, while we were waiting for our meals, we noticed the music. It was background music, no vocals, but they kept playing depressing songs. First they had “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic… then Romeo and Juliet… then Schindler’s list… Somewhere in Time… Ghost… Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to name a few. Basically movies with not so happy parts. It was rather amusing violin background music, we wondered if they knew they were all from depressing movies.
We then walked back to the trolley and took it all the way to where we could get on a ferry to Miyajima (name literally meaning Shrine Island). From there we ran to Itsukushima Shrine where it is famous for the beautiful red tori gate which during the high tide is in the middle of the ocean. It was low tide when we got there. It is a most gorgeous place and was a great end to the day after spending the whole first half of our day at the depressing location of Hiroshima. We took some fantastic photos there, which I will be uploading this evening. We then took the train back to Hiroshima station, grabbed dinner from the convenience store (way better dinners than you could get at a US convenience store) and took the Shinkansen back on a 7:50pm train arrive back in Kyoto just before 10pm.
Now I’m back in the hotel getting ready to upload photos.
We are off to see Himeji Castle tomorrow so I’m SUPER excited about that, it’s one of the most renowned and well known rebuilt castles in Japan. It also involves another (but shorter) Shinkansen train ride.
-Cat Hoffman