Expect Me When You See Me

I have pretty much been sick for the past three weeks - ever since I left Tokyo. I wavered between 'just sniffly' and' coughing up my lungs' until I finally gave up and started taking some antibiotics I had. I'm still sniffly but I feel like I finally have my energy back and have been getting things done. The problem with trying to get better here is a) you have no heat at night so you're breathing in cold air (you can turn the heater on but it's as expensive as running an air conditioner and I can't cover my mouth due to my asthma) and b) despite not being paid, I'm pretty much expected to work 9-5/6 every weekday after biking for 15 minutes in the cold to get there and back. Plus, I had to go through a ton of site reports and photocopy relevant bits and the photocopier was out in the unheated hallways and the library itself wasn't much warmer. It's a lot warmer than Wisconsin here but I'm used to having regular heating available. *sigh*

So the archaeological center I work with found me an apartment. It's a typical one room with a single hob, closet and a tiny bathroom. It's a 15 min bike ride away through a major shinto shrine and past a lake full of birds. Quite a peaceful ride, but I look forward to it being about 10 degrees (F) warmer. I have a lovely bamboo grove behind my apartment. This is the view from my balcony. It's not very good for getting my laundry to dry but it's excellent for keeping the sunlight out of my apartment (I can't sleep when it's too bright so really it's ideal). I live about 30 seconds from a 7-11 so it's always convenient to get things even though I wish I were closer to some of the more major stores. I am on a major train line into Osaka though so it's easy to get places if I need to.

When not languishing from the colds, I have been getting things I need and seeing what I can and can't cook in available space and with available ingredients. I'm happy to say my repertoire has grown since last I lived in Japan. And kimchi is readily available so I can do Korean dishes as well. Despite eating well, my pants are getting loose. Thankfully, I anticipated this and brought a belt. Entertainment wise, I've been rereading the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy and considering what might have been. Been watching the new X-files which has so far been one good episode, two okay ones and two bad. We shall see how the finale is.

Two weekends ago, I needed to go to Ikea so I caught the train into Osaka and the free bus to Ikea. Then since I was at the proper station, I went to Den Den Town which is Osaka's Akihabara. It's smaller but that made it easier to find things and things were much cheaper in places. I ended up picking up two Natsume Yuujinchou statues for 1/3 the price I saw them for in Tokyo. I totally recommend it but it was rather hard to find, especially since it was pouring rain. Also, I somehow stumbled on a whole store of doujinshi for women that wasn't mandarake... I really need to stop buying doujinshi lol. But they had some ones from rarer series so I had to indulge.

Over the past few weeks, I have gone through every Kofun period site report for Nara prefecture, photocopied relevant bits and compiled a list of all their stone beads in Japanese. Then I started researching mineral localities. I should get at the actual beads this week or the next. They like to take us (ie the foreign researchers - two Koreans, one Chinese and me) on archaeology field trips every Friday. So the first one we ended up climbing all over one kofun tomb, then climbing into another one and visiting a nearby museum for a third. Last Friday, we ended up being brought around the prefecture to look at all the current excavations. Nothing too relevant to my research but it was cool to see Yayoi period rice paddies and a Nara period palace. Oh, and we visited another museum. I've actually been to all the museums around here before but it's relaxing and a good break so oh well. This week or the next we head to hyoruji temple and another museum. I've visited them both before but it'll be nice to see the tombs at the museum in the winter and I haven't been to hyoruji in over a decade. Ja ne!

Started out early after dropping my bag in a coin locker at Kyoto Station. Then headed to Ryoanji with itsfamous zen rock garden. I wasn't all that impressed. I'd expected it to be, I don't know, bigger. The zen garden in Yamaguchi City is just as good imo. The temple did have the best merchandise and good English explanations. Pity I had no money (I am literally going home with about 500 yen total.) After Ryoanji, I did some bus manuveuring and walking to get to Goryo Jinga shrine for their festival which turned out to be more of a low key flea market. Did pick up a nice set of small screwdrivers at least.

Next was Ginkakuji (the Silver pavilion though the silver melted off long ago), which really was a beautiful temple. It was just as impressive as Kinkakuji only in a different way. Also, the grounds were magnificent - all moss covered with streams wandering through. Also, a grove of bamboo and cedar. Beautiful pics, and a better, if weirder Zen garden than Ryoanji.

Caught the bus to the Heian Shrine which despite being a modern scale model was pretty impressive architecturally (or is that because of?). It was also teeming with shrine maidens. I wandered past the Budo centre on my way out which is full of training halls for the martial arts though I couldn't go inside. Then I stopped at the Kyoto handicraft centre which is kinda a tourist trap and kinda not. It really depends on what "swag" you want to buy. Anyway, I was drawn to the woodblock printing floor where I got to watch them actually carving the blocks out and printing them. There were tons of prints there, but the actual old ones were too expensive as were any of the bigger/nicer reproductions. But I did manage to find a cheap, near postcard size modern print by K. Nishijima. It's quite pretty and is called "Festival day". There was also a half price sale on a few of those 8X10 reproduction prints which happened to include one of my all time favourite prints by Hiroshige (one which I've always called "guy losing his hat" myself) so I picked it up for about $18. Thank god they took credit cards.

I killed as much time there as possible then headed back to the station. Kyoto's much less crowded now that Obon's over, which is nice but some of the energy is gone, or maybe that's just me. Had yakisoba for lunch, did a bit of shopping in the mall under the station before catching the Shin.

I wanted to note that Jen, the Korean guy I met at my hostel said I have "really warm eyes" and I must be good with kids. Also, that I look Spanish. o_0

Home again. Here I come.

I'm eating mitarashi tofu. It's got a surprisingly sweet sauce and is also fun to eat. It's been an easy day, all things considered. I woke up at the ungodly hour of 7 by fricking roommates who couldn't turn off their bloody alarm. Hit up the international ATM, then caught the bus to Kiyomizu temple. (I love the bus system in this city.) I climbed up the hill towards the temple, getting sucked in by the tourist kitsch as was intended. Ended up with two fans, soft tofu triangles that are surprisingly tasty (they suck you in by giving you free tea and lots of free tastes. Bastards;)) and I couldn't resist buying a cheap (at least $10 less than anywhere else) Shinsengumi fuku. I am both ashamed and thrilled. Kiyomizudera itself was larger than I expected and kinda on the edge of a cliff. It was a normal temple. I got to light a candle then wandered over to the love shrine where I watched many try the 'walk of love' as I've dubbed it - you have to walk with your eyes closed between two sacred rocks about 20ft apart and if you succeed, you'll be lucky in love. I was very amused when after I did it successfully, a Japanese lady told me, "Congratulations!" *L*

The porch of the temple is a favourite suicide place, which must suck for the people who have to find the bodies in the trees below it. I followed the path down to the sacred springs where I got in line to taste the water that supposedly grants wishes. They sanitized the cups there with radiation or something. Very weird, but the water was cold and tasted good.

I left the temple and wandered through the touristy, merchant hill district around the temple to the Kodaji temple which has a huge Bodhisattva statue. They handed me this huge stick of purple incense when I went in, and it turns out the place is dedicated to unknown soldiers who died during WWII. That made me feel pretty weird especially when I noticed I was the only one given incense... Afterwards, I hit up this cute little tea shop completeley dedicated to tofu for an early lunch of mitarashi tofu and tea. Then I headed to Yasaka shrine, took some quick pics (it's famous, but there's not much there), and into Maruyama Park which was quite nice, but I never did find Chionin temple. Did have a great melon ice though. Should mention, I saw some fake maiko (trainee geisha) near Kiyomizu where you can pay to dress up as one then pose for photos. It was cute.

I headed to The Museum of Kyoto after that for their amazing ukiyou-e display. It was nearly every print by Hiroshige and Hokusai! Famous ones like the Great Wave (and all the other 36 views of Fuji) and lots of smaller or less famous ones I've never seen. There was a distinct lack of info in English, but I bought the exhibit display so maybe someday I'll read it. After the exhibit, I fled from some rain into a covered shopping area close to Gion which was fun to wander through, but bad for my pocketbook. I first found an English book sale (they had an entire floor of them *cries*) and picked up the sequel to Howl's Moving Castle and the Spider-man 2 novel (because it's by Peter David). Then I was sucked into a ukiyou-e store and it was a beautiful and heartbreaking place *fake sob* The older actual prints were $100-200 dollars which isn't bad, but I can't afford it (someday, please!). So I bought a beautiful print reproduction of a Hiroshige view through a bridge that I had seen earlier. I checked that it was an actual print (those archaeology skills come in handy) and the colour was fantastic so really $25 was a good price.

After spending all that money, I headed back to my hostel, dropped off my parcels and headed for the station to catch a local train to Fushimi Inari Shrine which is just a stop away from Kyoto. There are these fantastic mountain paths covered in bright, red tori leading up to kitsune surrounded shrines. It had a fantastic atmosphere especially in the evening, but all the food shops were closed (was hoping for some kitsune udon or inari sushi) so I caught the train back and went for okonomiyaki. The lady cooked it for me while I read my book. Then I had desert nearby at a little teahouse. I had toffee tea and chatted with an Australian staying at my hostel, Maureen, who was there to visit Japanese gardens.

Earlier post (which covers parts of this entry and part of the 15th)

I am in the hills up around Kyoto, specifically near Adashino Nambutsuji temple, otherwise known as the middle of nowhere. The plus side is if the ants don't bite me, I have a magnificent view over Hirosawa ike (pond) of the giant torigata (gate shape) lit up by fire on the nearby hillside.

I woke up around 7:45 by roommates being too loud. I think think they I'm really young, judging by the way they treat me. Took awhile to wake up so I wandered to the train station a bit before catching the bus to Mibudera temple. It was hard to find, but I followed some other Japanese tourists (since I doubt they rarely, if ever, see Westerners following the Shinsengumi trail). Found the cemetery and bought a Shinsengumi towel to wipe the sweat from my brow as I stared at the grave of Kondo Isami and Serizawa Kamo.

(The sunset is beautiful atm and many boats are positioning themselves for the twilight. My back hurts.)

After the temple, I turned the corner and found the Sumiya Inn (I think. Either that or it was another inn the Shinsengumi favoured since there are two in the area that both have sword marks from Shinsengumi people.) So I went in for the entirely in Japanese tour which was basically historical story telling. I was able to follow it since I'm familiar enough with the Shinsengumi history. (Buddhist/shinto(?) chanting just started on the other side of the pond.) It was a pretty entertaining story with her saying things like, "And Kondo Isami was sitting right there.", and "And this is where people like Okita used to bathe." There was a nice sword mark on a lintel there and I snuck a pic. The ticket came with a cup of frothy, green tea and a tasty mochi which was well worth it even if I don't like frothy green tea, and I bought a Shinsengumi fan.

(7pm They just started putting floating lanterns out on the pond. Fantastic!)

A few more feet down the street there was another building with pics of sword marks and cheesy Shinsengumi cutouts and kiddie fuku. I bought this beautiful book full of colorized photos from around that time period. Sort of like Gorskii, only in Japan.  My luck with pin machines was fantastic. I got the one I wanted from the Kyoto pin plate, then it took only 2 tries to get the Okita pin I wanted. My pin bag looks very cool and cute according to the ladies at Mibudera temple.

I then made the mistake of walking to Nijo castle - very hot and streets in Kyoto are very long. Ate a croissant sandwich and a melon shake before heading in. It was a beautiful place with fantastic decorations inside and out. The garden was gorgeous. I loved the nightingale floors though ninja walking does thwart them from squeaking. I liked the guy who came by while I was trying to quietly walk across them - he deliberately stepped on the board then gave me a cheeky grin. (7:10pm Female chanting just started on top of the male one.) The rest of the castle was less interesting but the castle walls were fascinating to see after having seen the ruins of Hagi castle months before.

I went back to my hostel but forgot it was closed for cleaning so I stowed my goodies and headed out to kintakuji temple (the golden pavilion) . It was very impressive and picturesque even if it was only rebuilt in 1958. There's not much there other than the pavilion though. I caught a bus to the middle of nowhere (ie, here), bought dinner, asked directions then hiked to the pond. Yatta!

11:05 - Back at the hostel again. Fantastic pics. I loved the tori and it burned so well. Thelanterns on the lake were lovely though the Japanese with cameras who slowly surrounded the lake shore with their tripods and cameras which were heavier and more professional than mine, were scary. Hate the smokers too. I was sad to leave but the bus ride back was surprisingly easy.

This was a great birthday. I woke up at 7:30am and checked out at 8:30. I headed to Sakurai, very tired and sore from yesterday but had a good breakfast at the ryokan. At Sakurai, I rented a bike. The kind, old man who ran the place drew me a hiragana map to the kofun and gave me a flashlight. I'm not sure if I'm reading the kanji right, but the first kofun I visited was Soubo (or maybe kusahaka) (艸墓) kofun. It was hidden in someone's backyard, and you had to walk a very narrow path along their hedge in order to get to it. I loved going in with my flashlight and seeing the chamber and stone coffin. Outside were children's tricycles and playhouses. Great pics.

Uenomiya park nearby was disappointing and small with the barest remains of a kofun period structure.　メスリ山 kofun was only viewable form outside as far as I could tell.

Meanwhile, 史跡谷首(reads shisekitanishu, I think) kofun was... scary. Not that I let this stop me, but geez... The entrance was partially collapsed and it echoed with strange noises from all the bugs and creatures. It was big inside with a high ceiling which was nice until I noticed the fucking huge brown spiders on the walls. I stood my ground, took pics, touched the walls, then scarpered. Outside, I discovered I was hyperventilating and shaking a bit since I was so frightened.

Next was Asuka town which took a bit of biking. I only had to stop and ask for directions once. They have a cute little museum there (it was free that day, so yay!). I loved the replicas outside. Got cool books on kofun and was surprised to find an obviously rarely used English audio guide to the museum - it was brief, which was nice, but not really informative, which was bad. Relaxed a bit in the air conditioning, then biked back (10km total). Was much easier going back especially since I'd learnt how to ride a bike again.

I returned the bike, caught the train back to Nara. Found Animate, the anime store, which was fantastic. I bought tons of pins from various series for my bag, pencil boards and pic cards. Who is the proud owner of a Kakashi & Yondaime with umbrellas pencil boad? Me! Happy Birthday, Ariana! (Got cool Sanji and Mugen figures too.)

Was dead tired at that point, so just headed to Kyoto. Made it just in time to check in at my hostel and be 10 minutes late meeting M. and family who were really sweet and treated me to dinner at a restaurant in Gion. I had beef steak which came with tons of tofu, salad, rice and the steak (rare and delicious) with a good sauce. This was good since I hadn't eaten since noon and it was 9:15 by then. Afterwards, we headed to Higashi Othani temple for their lantern display (which I researched long before). It was so very cool to see the cemetery up on the hill with a light on each grave. Awesome. We then headed back since I had a curfew and it was late. Kyoto is strange but cool.

I need sleep.

For my own reference, I'm typing up my diary from my trip to Nara and Kyoto in 2006. I'll probably split it into a couple different posts with added pictures. I've also added picture links to any old entries I wrote about the trip.

8/13/06
Older, comprehensive post
おまけ

• There was a Mormon/Jehovah's Witness who used the air conditioned box you wait in at the Shinkansen station to evangelize. The poor Japanese girl in there with me had the look of someone with nowhere to run



• Shinkansen is <3!



• It isn't a trip to Nara until you've seen someone Japanese get mobbed by deer while their friends/family watch and laugh. (Incidentally, the deer here look much better cared for than at Miyajima.)



• I had a dream that was Spider-man set in early Medieval times. The anachronisms bothered me so much it woke me up. Other than that, it was a pretty cool dream.



• Sound travels through this ryokan. It's like the walls are made of paper... Oh wait.

8/14/06
Older Comprehensive Post

• I must have walked 4-5km today.



• My feet hurt.



• I know Nara is supposed to be a big city and Yamaguchi the countryside, but this feels like the country while Yamaguchi feels industrial. - Dear God that train station today was local.



• I think the daibutsu's face is only shown a few times a year. I remember reading of it long ago.



• Had more conversations completely in Japanese.



• I'm becoming addicted to temple charms.



• Festival food is bad for you, but boy does it taste good: chicken and veggies on a stick, takoyaki, and a snow cone (melon flavoured).



• I loved the weird lantern patches, though I still have no idea what the katakana on the mountain said. Fantastic pics. See?.



• My body hurts and I can't figure out why a day of walking makes it difficult for me to bend over.



• Really did almost faint today from all the walking in the humid heat. I was feeling woozy when I finally found a vending machine with some Pocari Sweat in it. Downed the whole thing in less than a minute then sat down for about ten until I was no longer feeling dizzy and nauseous. Heat exhaustion's a bitch.



• Guy hitting on me was okay. Guy hitting on me and not knowing where the bike rental place was? Not so much.



• I like travelling alone and it's even easier in Japan since you can trust just about anyone to take your picture.



• This trip is a really good birthday gift.



• Stupid bug bites.



• Go to sleep people next door.



• Am already calling the ryokan home. Also, my first buckwheat pillow. Not as uncomfortable as everyone says they are.

I spent my evening up in the hills around Kyoto at a small pond called Hirosawa no ike. There, you could perfectly see the torii bonfire figure up on the hill reflecting over the lake/pond and there were people in boats releasing hundreds of multicoloured floating paper lanterns. Across the lake was a whole series of shinto and maybe buddist chanters doing a ceremony for hours before. Fantastic:D

I want to describe my whole day but I'll run out of time soon. Short version is, yesterday, my birthday, was wonderful despite the fact that I biked over 10km in 100 degree heat. I visited several kofun and went inside two different ones, saw the museum I wanted to see (and it was free that day), got into Kyoto and saw a fantastic lanterns on graveyard up in the hills thing. M.'s parents were kind enough to treat me to dinner in the Gion's district which meant a rather traditional meal and lots of tofun. Yum.

Today, went Shinsengumi hunting and found more than I bargained for (graves, sword marks, merchandise!), then hit up Nijo castle which is magnificent, though the nightengale floors were no match for my ninja walking skills! Evening, I hit up Kinkakuji which is magnificent to look at if rather sparse in most other temple visit areas. Then headed on down to the pond and here I am, back at my hostel, safe and freshly washed. MMm, cleanliness.

My feet hurt and I have a blister. I've also lost weight which, considering I left on sunday, is kinda worrying. So today, i made an effort to eat more calories and actually eat around meal times (I tend to remember lunch around 1 then forget dinner until 10pm cause I'm so distracted by purty stuff.) Of course, most places I want to see tend to close at 5pm so then i have time to actually go eat and stuff and all the night things I need to do are finally over. They were great but I'm beginning to wear thin. I discovered there's a display of ukiyou-e prints at the museum here. Must go tomorrow. Also hitting up all the main places I haven't hit yet tomorrow though i'm ultiamately skipping a few temples other people adore cause I'd much rather see the cool historical places no one but me and the obsessive japanese want to see.

I'll do a much better report on everything when I get back. maybe even pics. Ja ne!

A quick update since I'm about to go out to look at pretty lights again. Woke up early to head out towards Sakurai. Got off at Makimuku stop to see the Hashihaka kofun which was disappointing and I got bitten by many evil bugs. Then ended up following this historical hike trail which would have been nicer if it weren't boiling out and if I weren't developing a blister. Saw another kofun (accidently) called Hokenoyama kofun which had a layout of the burial chamber since most of the mound was gone. Saw another round kofun and then ended up at a famous shrine. I had lunch in a little restaurant nearby - higashi somen which is somen (cold noodles) on ice with mushrooms and seaweed. It was as refreshing as everyone tells me it is. Was trying not to die from the heat at this point since all my water was being lost as sweat. I swear I spent more money on drinks then anything else today.

Got to Sakurai, but discovered museum was closed so rather than just go look at kofun, I headed back into Nara with the plan of going tomorrow morning. I hit up Horyuji temple instead which is really old and very cool looking, plus lots of buddist treasures. It had this cool dragon theme going with wooden dragons winding their way around pillars and stuff. Then headed back into the city and took a very expensive taxi so I could see the famous Todaiji temple before it closed.

The hall there is huge, and the buddha inside is enormous. Very cool though now all other buddhas will seem a little inadequate. I'm heading back there now to see it lit up at night.

I'm dead tired but there's no point in wasting the night. And it only occurred to me five minutes ago that tomorrows my birthday and I'm going to spend it biking around the countryside looking at kofun... That sounds about right;)

Probably won't be able to get online in Kyoto so later all!

I'm in a quaint little ryokan atm trying not to fall asleep as I type since I started out this morning at 7am. The trip was surprisingly easy. Shinkansen is now one of my favourite ways to travel. I have never been on such a smoothly run train with clean bathrooms and quiet train cars. No wonder people wax poetic about it. It made the two hour trip to Kyoto fly by. From there, I caught the train to Nara, found my ryokan, dropped off my bags and headed off.

I had fish and chips for lunch since I figured I had a 50/50 chance of them tasting good. I lucked out and they were excellent plus the chips were real potato wedges and good malt vinegar. Yum. The lady behind the bar quized me while I ate and later wrote out directions for me on how to get to the temple I wanted to go to. I'd have figured it out on my own, but it was nice of her to do so.

I headed off to the outskirts of Nara to visit Yakushiji temple which was pretty cool to wander around with it's pagoda and cool buddhas. Lots of monks too. I got to see them praying. All the while, I was dying from the heat so I drank a ton of water and sports drinks today in an effort not to suffer heat exhaustion. May I succeed since tomorrow will be more strenuous. After Yakushiji was Toshodaiji which has the largest wooden hall in the world or something (I don't really care actually) which turned out to be under renovation so I wandered the grounds instead taking pics of lilies and turtles.

I lucked out then and found directions to a nearby kofun (Emperor Suinin's) which I followed to find a beautiful moat surrounding a perfect example of a key style kofun (the key part is hard to show since it's huge). You couldn't get anywhere near it but I took tons of pictures. I had a entire conversation in Japanese with a guy burning weeds in front of the kofun too (it's kinda rare since they usually try to speak English). Oddly enough, later in the day I got to practice my French on one of the guests at the ryokan. It's kinda cool to actually use the languages I know.

Dead tired after that, I made my way back to central Nara (and accidentally scammed the system... the train guy didn't seem to understand that I didn't want to buy a ticket, I just hadn't managed to buy one at the station I got on at). back to the ryokan, checked in, found out my room was this little cute japanese style room with a powerful air conditioner and tea. Used the bath which was great. It was Japanese style so you wear your yukata down to the bath, shower on stools and then jump in the largest bathtub I've ever seen. I'm glad I'm so used to onsen or else I might have been weirded out *L*

I vegged in my room for a bit since I was exhausted. Have read Howl's Moving Castle all day and adore it. Thank god I know the local book shop in Ube has a copy of the sequel or else I'd be sending some urgent pleas *g* Finally, hunger drove me from my room, that and the need to go see the big lighting up of Nara park that happens this entire week.

Grabbed some kitsune udon for dinner (cheap too, about 4 dollars) and some ice cream to eat while walking. Set my camera to twilight so I got some utterly gorgeous night pics. I love my camera. The lights were really beautiful though I have to go back tomorrow night and get more pics of the main temples since I had not the strength to walk the 2 km to all of them after how much I'd already walked. There were tons of people there which both ruined and heightened the atmosphere. It's a big date spot and it was adorable to see couples renting boats with lanterns to go out on the lake with "romantic music". I got a pretty neat movie of it too.

月よび　飛鳥　に　行きます。