Over the Hill

It occurred to me last week that I have been here now for a few days over 6 months. I’m at the halfway point. I remember back when a year seemed so long. And now, it feels like my remaining 6 months won’t be long enough. A couple of weeks ago, the recontracting deadline came around. I opted not to recontract, solidifying that I would, in fact, be leaving in August, as per the original plan. It’s not that I don’t love what I’m doing and where I’m at. I just have too many other things to do back in the states. Had I known it would be like this, though, I might have planned way back at the start of this process to stay for longer.

Of course, there was a lot about my time in Japan I didn’t know back then. I didn’t know I’d have a bigger apartment than the pictures showed. I didn’t know I’d have an awesome convenient store right across the street with fantastic service and even better bentos. I didn’t know I’d be placed in a lovely spot just kind-of-in the inaka, but still with a touch of big city life.

I didn’t know I’d meet so many people from so many different countries; Ireland, England, Australia, New Zealand, Norway… Texas... ... Alaska. I didn’t know I’d meet so many people from different parts of Japan. I’ve got great friends in Ozu, Arao, Mifune, Nankan, Tamana, Yamaga and many, many other places including Kyoto and Osaka. I didn’t know we’d be going out and having some of the most incredible nights I’ve had in a long time. ...I didn't know I would actually ENJOY karaoke...

I didn’t know Anna would be able to come visit and let me show her around for a few weeks. Nor did I know we’d be going to see Nagasaki together, standing at the epicenter of the A-bomb, or going to Beppu and ooo-ing and aah-ing over Hell, or going to Kumamoto and standing at the top of one of the top 3 most beautiful castles in all of Japan. I had no idea I’d be experienced enough in Japanese language and custom to get us around to those places without help (or get us lost so spectacularly… *cough*).

And speaking of that, I didn’t think it would be possible to learn as much Japanese as I have, and be as comfortable with custom as I’ve gotten. Of course there are miles and miles to go with it, but starting from absolutely nothing, I’m shocked. I didn’t think my anxiety and fear as I stepped off the plane would ever melt into sighs of relief and solid self-reassurances of “You can do this.”

Yeah, had I known all of this, sure. I would have planned for longer. Who wouldn’t? However, I do know that all good things must come to an end. I don’t want to make myself sick of Japan… Personally, I know if I stay any longer and try to recreate all of the magic from my first year, it would cheapen the whole experience for me. I planned 1 year, I have the mindset for 1 year, I’m going home after 1 year. Well... 6 months now. ;)

As a disclaimer to all you people interested in a program like this, don’t think this means I’m saying YOU should only stay for 1 year. By all means, you should stick around and enjoy Japan for as long as you like. You make the decision that’s best for you, just as I have. I’m only trying to give you a heads up: You’re gonna want more. ;)

KYOTOSAKA EXTRAVAPALOOZAGANZA!!!

Strap yourselves in, folks. I hope you ate and have cleared your schedules for the afternoon, because this one's a doozy. (Edit: Sorry, I can't get the pictures and captions to line up... basically, if it's on the left, it goes with the left picture. Right, it goes with the right picture. "Thanks, Colin... I think we could have figured that one out." Hey, you don't know what type of people read my blog...)


Oh man. OH. MAN. Wow. I just had an awesome weekend. What, you say? It's Friday again? I know, I know. Give me a break. Got back on Wednesday afternoon and was too burned out to do anything productive... and then I hit a busy patch for a couple days, but now, here I am! I don't want to make this post too disgustingly long, so I'll touch on the high points and throw in some pictures... if you want details, you've gotta ask. :D (To make the pictures bigger, click on them)

So, for those who have read this far and are still going, "what the heck is he rambling on about? This is stranger than usual..." I just got back from 5 day trip to Kyoto and Osaka with Tim and Kana. See, ALTs have this thing where we can only work 20 days a month. October had 22 working days, so we're required to take 2 days off... Tim and I swung it to get those on the end of an already 3 day weekend (since the students were on break and we'd have to go to work, anyway), and then planned this massive vacation. Go, team! It worked out nicely because they both have friends in Osaka and Kyoto. But you know what else is in Kyoto?

Temples. Shrines. Classic Japan. The exact reason I wanted to go. Call me a nerd, but I'm into that history stuff. I've heard a lot of people say they are bored of that stuff, or that they got sick of Kyoto, but I don't think I could ever.

So, Day 1. We headed off from Ozu at about 1:15 to catch the 1:45 train into the city and connect with our 2:55 tickets to Fukuoka... in Fukoka, we connected with... THE SHINKANSEN!!! Bullet train, yo!! Yes. It IS fast. Not as blazingly "OMG WTF" fast as I was hoping, but still, a nice change from the local trains. We got into Kyoto and grabbed a couple more local trains, finally meeting Ben at about 8:00. (Ben is the friend of Kana and Tim's whose house we'd be invading for our time there)













Shinkansen fun!

The stairs in this house are scarily steep...

We went out for some dinner and some conversation and pretty much had an awesome time of it. Afterwards, we opted to take an easy night before hitting Kyoto and so rented a movie and hung out at Ben's. (Sukiyaki Western Django... weird, weird, weird movie... but strangely awesome)

Day 2. Ben swore by some shrine that had big orange gates, and remembering a little about it, we figured it would be as good a place as any. So we headed to Fushimi-inari shrine ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fushimi_Inari-taisha ). Basically, it was a lot of walking up a mountain, but there were plenty of things to see. Massive orange gates, little orange gates, medium sized orange gates... basically, if you hate the color orange, stay away (in fact, don't even come to Kyoto... Orange seems to be a famous color, I guess). The path was peppered with shrines and such that people stopped and prayed at ("Throw donation, pull rope to ring the bell, clap twice, pray, leave... repeat at next shrine"). Very very cool. And even funnier that Ben accidentally color coordinated with the gates. (Look on facebook or photobucket for that photo)












Ooo, look at the gates.
1000 of these little ones...

You could buy little gates to write things on
and then leave them at shrines along the way...

After this, we went to Higashi-honganji temple. ( http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3920.html <-- This is a fantastic website about Japan) It's a temple that's literally right in the middle of Kyoto. Kind of neat in that it was massive and had some amazing architecture... but unfortunately, they didn't allow photos of the interior. It was just a large tatami room, anyway. It was still cool to hang out in there and wonder about people in it over the hundreds of years it's been around... Oh, the main building was being renovated, so the outside was covered... but we gained access through Amida Hall, the smaller (but still huge) building next to it. Not a lot of pictures, though.

Ta-daa!! This is the entry gate.

You wash your hands in this... and Ben's picking it's nose.

After that, we went and found some dinner after wandering back through Kyoto Station (oh my gosh, it was massive AND amazing! Especially at night!) and decided to go to the top of Kyoto tower. I got some good night shots from there, so that's always a plus. After that, a quick trip through the gift shop (where I bought a keitai charm... this little dude that hangs off my keitai (cell phone)) and we headed back to Ben's to get some sleep for...

Day 3. Ben had to go to class, so Kana, Tim, and I were on our own for the morning. Since the Kyoto Imperial Palace site was close to the school, we decided to start there. ( http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3917.html ) Much to our chagrin, however, it was closed because it was a national holiday (Sports and Education Day, or something... what?). Though we did get to take some pictures from the outside. Not too many. It was kind of neat wandering around the area, though. The massive gravel paths lining the walls were cool, and the whole area was in a park. We did manage to see some cooler parts of it, though...

One of the gates leading into the main palace portion.

After this, we headed over to maybe the second coolest place we saw: Kinkakuji, or "The Golden Pavillion." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkakuji ) This. Place. ROCKED. It's a temple that was built a long time ago and was plated with gold leaf. There's a cool photo spot across the lake from it (The "Post card shot.") but then you follow the path to go right up next to it and realize that EVERYTHING is a "Postcard shot." It was very crowded, but the path was set up to where the mass of people didn't get in the way of the experience. Enough of my jabbering. here's some pictures.

Look, ma. I've turned into a 15 year old japanese girl. :(

They even have gold plated rain gutters. How posh!

After this, we met back up with Ben and decided on another place to go check out. We headed for what I later found out was recently voted the top visitor's destination in Kyoto, and is well deserving of it's #1 place on my favorite spots: Kiyomizu-dera, "Pure Water Temple." ( http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3901.html ) Maybe it was the fact it was sunset, or maybe it was the location, but this place was amazing. You start off with a walk up the winding roads below through shops and throngs of people, while the whole time there is a massive pagoda staring you down from the distance in the trees. Finally, you get there. Lots of cool, old buildings, lots of shrines and good luck charms, lots of amazing views of Kyoto on the horizon... Not to mention the place is famous for it's terrace, a rather impressive structure to both stand on and look at from a distance... again, words don't do this one justice... and neither do these pictures, but let me try.

Again with the orange?
This pagoda was what was looming in the distance.

The balcony. Incredible. You really
have to be there to understand why. :D

After this, we headed to a smaller part of town and hung out in this cool shrine/park type place for a little while. Then we headed to the Gion district to try and spot an apprentice geisha (no luck :( ) and ended up hanging out in front of this classic theatre for about an hour just talking. We voted for some pizza for dinner ("Pizza Little Party" won out over Pizza Hut) and called it a night.

On Day 4, we pretty much got up and headed into Osaka. We left Ben (*tear*) at the train station to go to class, and jumped on the subway line to get into town. After spending some time deciding what to do on the rainy day, we opted to first and foremost buy some cheap little umbrellas. Secondly, we headed to the Osaka Aquarium! ( http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4004.html ) It's a cool aquarium that you start at the top of, and then spiral down around the main tank in the middle. It was about half things I'd seen at the Henry Doorly Zoo, but about half were brand new animals!! Live!! ("I'm a big fan of your previous work... as a cub...") I'll spare the pictures on this one, but I finally got to see a manta ray (The thing seriously had about an 8 foot wingspan) and a whale shark! Sugoi!!

After spending the day there and also wandering around parts of down town, we found ourselves headed to meet Shiro-chan, one of Kana's good friends, to show us around for the night. But first, a quick stop by the Glico sign in the shopping district of Osaka. I guess it's a pretty famous sign that everyone gets their picture taken next to. Eh, when in Rome... But overall, the area was fantastic. Lots of huge billboards and advertisements that spared no expense. And somehow, it managed to preserve that "Japan" feeling. After this, meet Shiro-chan, check into our hotel, and then head off to Rock Rock, a great metal club.

By this point, I was running out of room on my camera, so I didn't get a lot of pictures... not that there was a ton to take a picture of. Though I guess the highlight (and one of the last pictures I managed to fit in) was that a member of Slipknot was also at the club. This club was about the size of 1 and a half dorm rooms and about 30 people were crammed in at one time... looming over the crowd, of course, was me and the Slipknot guy (...and his scary bodyguard...). I snagged a few pictures and even got to shake his hand on his way out, but I really didn't know who he was (since... ya know... Slipknot wears masks... and I'm not an avid fan... only a casual one). I did some research, though, and found out it was Mick, the lead guitarist (and guy with the coolest looking mask).

Anyway, the club/party was amazingly fun... and we stayed out amazingly late (don't tell Mom...). But wait, you say. Did you mention Hotel, Colin? Why yes! Yes I did! To be even more touristy, we opted to stay in... wait for it... wait for it...

A capsule hotel!!

Surprisingly roomy, amazingly comfortable, and an excitingly fun experience! If what you needed wasn't in your room (as in showers and food...) you could just throw on your jinbei and lounge around in the lavish dining area or head to the private showers! Seriously, if we'd been there a few more days, I would have had no problem staying here again and again.

But unfortunately, Day 5 brings about the end of the trip. Because of the way the train tickets worked out, we couldn't really work in Kobe (bummer) so we just opted for an early return and an evening to relax. All in all, a fantastic trip. I'm very glad I went, and actually kind of sad that I didn't gte to spend more time there. We saw less than half of what Kyoto has to offer, and I feel we only scratched the surface of Osaka... but there is much more to see and many more places in Japan to visit. But slowly... very slowly... I am working on complete "Japanification" of myself. In fact, just check out these souvenirs I bought!

SIZE 30 GETA!! THOSE SHOES!! THEY ARE SIZE 30!! Do you have ANY IDEA how hard it is to find size 30 shoes in Japan, LET ALONE GETA???