Much belated entries!

Ok, so I’ve been terrible about keeping this updated. I’m down to only 34 days!! I can’t believe how quickly time is passing!! So here’s my attempt to catch y’all up on some fun “recent” things before I forget to entirely! Sorry it's so long!

RICE PLANTING

Sometime in May, I went with a group of people to plant rice! This is something I’d wanted to do from the beginning, especially as I live in the countryside and am surround by rice paddies, but wasn’t sure I’d actually have the opportunity. I mean you can’t just walk up to some random farmer and ask to help. But there’s a group down in Kusatsu that arranges for outsiders to come help, so I jumped at the chance! To may credit, this entry is so belated because I was waiting to get pictures from the event! So all these pictures were taken either by the organizer or by my friend Myra.

We planted for probably about 3 hours; the first half was by hand, the second half, we took turns using the machine. When we planted by hand, we got into groups of 3-5. Along the side of the paddy, there’s a rope with little notches on it. One person held a bamboo stick with markings for where to plant the rice, lining it up with the notches on the rope. We had large chunks of rice plants that we broke smaller pieces off of to shove into the mud. After we put one for every bamboo stick marking, we moved backwards to the next notch on the rope.

  you can see the yellow markings on the bamboo here

Then we took turns using the machine that plants them. You place large sheets of rice plants on the top and walk slowly, keeping in line with a marker on the other side of the patty. The machine was rather heavy and really seemed to just direct itself, so it was kind of difficult to control. And you had to be careful not to step on the rice you’d just planted!

one of the large sheets of rice, it was really heavy!

One thing that surprised me was the paddy itself – it seems so deep, but really its only about an inch of water covering 6-8 inches of mud. It felt SO good on our feet!!

Since then, I’ve started paying a lot more attention to the rice – the straightness of the rows (now that I realize how difficult getting them like that is!), the level of the water, the speed of growth, the colors. I’m so glad that I actually able to do this! Those of you in Japan, if the opportunity arises, I highly recommend you take it!

AMANOHASHIDATE

Then, about 3 weeks ago, I went to Amanohashidate, considered one of the 3 most scenic sites in Japan (along with Miyajima with the floating torii and some island north of Tokyo). Basically, it’s a long sand bridge lined with pine trees.

I met up with my friend Brianne the night before, then we woke up at about 4am to catch sunrise. We realized that we were on the completely opposite side of the sandbar, so it was behind us while sunrise was in front of us, but that ended up being a good thing – it was so shrouded in fog that we never would’ve seen sunrise!

After a quick nap, we headed out to catch all the touristy sites. One thing I love about traveling with Brianne is that she gets ridiculously excited about everything. So regardless of how cool something actually is, we have a blast seeing it! That said, this was pretty deserving of her excitement! The thing that Amanohashidate, which means “Bridge to Heaven,” is famous for is this park where if you look at the sandbar through your legs, it looks like its floating to heaven. So to get up to this park we were told you had to take a cable car. We got to the cable car, but had a 15 minute wait, so we decided to explore. Then we stumbled upon the chair lift to the park! When I say chair lift, I literally mean chairs!! It was sooooo cute!!

Upon arriving at the top, we walked up to the highest observatory to take the necessary tourist photos of us flipping upside down! The view between our legs was actually pretty unexciting, but the silliness of the whole thing was great. There were also these wisdom lanterns scattered all around the island. We really couldn’t miss that photo opp now could we? We then chartered a boat to take us to the other side of the sand strip. It’d been ages since I was on a speed boat and it was fabulous!!

Look like it's floating?

Next, after pursuing the souvenir shops and convincing one to hold our bags for the day, we rented bikes to go across the sandbar. The sandbar was great because the path was lined with beautiful pines, but if you walked even 10 feet you’d be on the beach!! Now I used to hate the beach, but I’ve grown to love it living in this crazy country!! So we biked across, stopping regularly just to take in the beautiful beach! The water was a brilliant turquoise! We definitely wanted to go wading, but soon stopped when we realized the waves were filled with small, clear jellyfish!! Brianne also discovered a magical sea creature disguised as seaweed that sucked itself into the sand when she touched it! Anyone know what that is? We biked across, went to a grocery store to get lunch, then sat on a rock on the beach and enjoyed our bento, soaking up the sun!

Amanohashidate was pretty far out in the middle of nowhere, so even taking the limited express, more expensive trains, it was still about 3 hours for each of us to get home, so we left pretty early. Overall the trip was absolutely fabulous! To be honest though, I think it had more to do with Brianne’s contagious excitement than the sandbar itself. At least in Wisconsin, we have this sort of thing everywhere, so both of us found it to be yet another thing that Japanese people talk up that doesn’t necessarily live up to the hype. But I’m really happy I went and it was definitely a good time!

Amanda & Rebecca come to Japan!

The last 10 days, I had two friends from college visit – Amanda and Rebecca. The pictures are a mixture of all our pictures.

Their first day, we went to Kyoto and saw Sanjusangendo, known for its 1001 statues of the goddess Kannon. 1000 5’5” states flank an 11” Kannon in the center, 500 on each side. It’s an extremely overwhelming site! In the afternoon, we went to Nijo Castle, the home of the Tokugawa Shogun when they visited Kyoto. It’s famous for its “nightingale floors,” floors that whistle when you walk on them in order to guard against stealthy intruders.

 That night, after relaxing and resting our feet on the river, we met up with a bunch of my friends to go to a beer garden in Kyoto. As it turned out, my good friend Wes from college (also a friend of Rebecca’s) just happened to be in Japan at the same time, so he and some friends met up with us!! It was a pleasant surprise!

the Kamo River in Sanjo, Kyoto

Fun on the Pet Land rides! (They really ought to be smart enough to lock these up!) 

The next day, we made a last minute change to our schedule and went to Kobe! They really enjoyed the atmosphere of the city and were shocked at just how long the Motomachi shopping area was! And they were able to fully understand my lamentations about the lameness of Japanese bubble tea!! We went up in the Port Tower too, which was something I’d never done before! For lunch, we did kushiage – random food on sticks that you dip in batter and fry at your table. It was at the point that the girls learned that meals in Japan often aren’t just eating – they’re experiences!

After hours of shopping (with most purchases coming from the 100yen shop – such good deals!), we went back to Kyoto for dinner. Before dinner, we went to Uniqlo to fulfill my goal of getting a yukata (traditional summer clothing) before leaving Japan. They had the perfect print for me and the saleslady showed me how to put it on. I’d seen people put them on before, but it was a really fun experience to actually be the person having it put on. It was rather inexpensive, so I decided to go ahead and buy it! To further continue the theme of food “experiences,” we decided to get the jumbo parfait at one of the restaurants in the station. Such fun!　

On Monday, we went to Hiroshima, my favorite city in the whole world. As soon as we got off the train, I felt at home. I still can’t explain why I love Hiroshima so much, but just being there puts my mind at rest. We were a bit low on time because our shinkansen was an hour delayed, so we went straight to Shukkei garden. It was as beautiful as ever, everything green.

The girls then went to the Peace Museum while I checked into our hostel. I met up with them for a visit to the memorials at sunset.

That night, we did a nomihodai with dinner in my favorite building – the Sogo Building. I had a great time inventing drinks!

Miyajima was our next location and the girls seemed to love it as much as I do! We arrived just after low-tide, so the water was shallow enough that we decided to go out an touch the normally floating torii.gate. It was overwhelmingly large!!! The base of each of the legs was completely covered with mollusks. We took turns taking pictures of each other under the torii and played in the water a bit before heading to Daisho Temple.

Daisho Temple is one of my favorites in Japan. It has a large array of Buddhist imagery, so for tourists, it’s like 5 temples in one. Plus, it’s usually overlooked by most tourists, so its very peaceful. I’ve posted loads of pictures in the past, so feel free to look at the January travels with the rents post or the April 2007 travels with the sis if you want to see them!

We then headed up to the top of Mt. Misen. We were running low on time, so we took the cable car up, then walked the last kilometer up to the top. The walk up was really beautiful, a windy path through large rocks. And the view was fabulous!! The pictures really don’t do it justice.

We were planning to do lunch after this, but we just ran out of time before high tide, so after getting ice cream (really healthy lunch ne?), we went to Itsukushima Jinja, the floating shrine. Turns out, the tide came in about 20 minutes earlier than the ferry had predicted, so we ended up missing it anyway, but it was still beautiful.

We caught a shinkansen back in time to enjoy some delicious Italian food at Cannery Row with Anna.

We began the next day at Fushimi Inari, a 4km pathway lined with vermillion torii. We were already exhausted from so many early mornings, but I insisted we wake up ridiculously early as the ambience of the temple just isn’t the same after about 9am.

We had okonomiyaki for lunch, then went to Himeji Castle, perhaps the most famous castle in Japan.

It was a Wednesday, so we did my usual Wednesday night activity – dinner with Brian, then Yabs!!

Thursday was the girls’ last day with their JR passes, so we went to Nara to see the Todaiji Daibutsu (the largest indoor Buddha in Japan, housed in the largest wooden building in the world). In the afternoon, we went to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. It takes an obnoxiously long time to get to and from it, so we budgeted a lot of time. We ended up having a bit extra though, so we went to Otsu to see Lake Biwa before meeting up with Mike for kaiten sushi!

One of the things on Amanda’s list of must-sees was a bamboo forest, so Friday morning we went to Arashiyama. Walking along the pathway was fabulous, but we felt that going INSIDE the forest would be a far more memorable experience. So we broke in the forest, grabbed some pictures and enjoyed the feeling of being completely surrounded by bamboo. J Rebecca has those pictures, but I’ll post them as soon as I get them!

As we were already in Arashiyama, we had no choice but to visit the monkey park on Mt. Iwata! We came about a month after birthing season, so there were a few adorable tiny monkeys running around!

That night we were staying at a temple on Mt. Koya and as it was a rather long journey, we left just after lunch. Our temple was fabulous!! I’d stayed at a temple in this area before and while it was a great experience for a solo traveler looking for peace of mind, this was a far better temple to stay at for non-Japanese speakers. The owners were really warm and you could tell they had a lot of experience with tourists. The meditation lesson and ceremony explanations were all in English as well as Japanese. The head priests mother spoke incredibly good English, so she told us a lot about her life, the history of the temple, and the beliefs of the Shingon sect of Buddhism. Her son is a unique priest in that, despite being a devout believer in Shingon Buddhism, he was curious about other sects and so studied at a Tendai sect temple in Kyoto. We also had the opportunity to do shakkyo, copying the sutras in calligraphy. The girls also enjoyed getting to wear Yukata at the temple

The center of the dry garden was raked into the shape of the Sanskrit letter “a,” which is said to embody the whole universe in its sound.

We also saw the largest cemetery in Japan on Mt. Koya. I’d been there a few weeks before, but after the explanations of the woman at the temple, I was able to understand it a bit more. For example, one type of gravestone resembles a lantern with 5 layers. On each layer, a character is written (usually in Sanskrit, but sometimes in kanji). The characters stand for (from bottom to top) earth, water, fire, wind, and emptiness. It was the emptiness point that I found especially interesting. In Western ideology, if there’s a 5^th element, it’s usually considered to be spirit or perhaps God. While I knew that the overall goal of Buddhism is to free oneself of attachment in order to gain enlightenment, reach Nirvana, and snuff out the candle of existence, I was nevertheless surprised that the 5^th element was emptiness (represented by the kanji 空, sky).

sanskrit anji

As we were heading back to our temple to get out baggage, we stumbled upon a small shoe store. I went inside to see about getting traditional shoes to go with my newly purchased yukata. I had no hope of finding any as my feet are about 100 times larger than every Japanese person, but the shopkeeper measured my foot and custom made me a pair on the spot!! It only took about 10 minutes and we were able to watch the whole fascinating process!

Their last night, we went to Spa World in Osaka! When we got there, we found out that the schedule had changed in April, so the women’s floor was Asia, not Europe. I’d heard some not-so-good things about the Asia floor so I was rather annoyed, but it ended up being really fun! There was no tea bath like on the Europe floor, but this floor had a “Dr.Spa” area which had a lotion bath which was AMAZING. Little bubbles formed on your skin and you could actually feel the lotion seeping into your skin! There was also a detox bath with a waterfall that felt incredibly good after two days of carrying 50 lbs of luggage on my shoulders. I hope I have at least one more opportunity to go there before I leave! I really will miss onsen when I go home.

It was a whirlwind tour and we’re completely exhausted but it was a fabulous time. I loved that they were able to meet all my friends and see my life in the countryside as well as see the beautiful sites of Japan. We got exceptionally lucky because it’s the middle of rainy season now, but we didn’t have a single rainy day!

While they were here, we made plans for hanging out when I’m in St. Louis. It just can’t even believe that my return is close enough that I can make plans for specific days! It’s coming so quickly, I just can’t handle it! But it’s good to have things to look forward to, otherwise I think leaving would be unbearable.

Koyasan

So this is a little last, apologies. Mt. Koya is in Wakayama Prefecture and is the head of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, one of the largest and most influential. There are over 100 temples on this mountain as well as the most famous cemetery in Japan. I’d been wanting to go since I first arrived and just never got around to it. Then about three weeks ago, I realized I had only one completely free weekend until I left – two weekends ago. As this mountain was a priority for me, I decided that, despite having a ridiculously short amount of time to plan, I was going to go. Thanks to my co-worker, I was able to make all the preparations and find out all the information I needed to do a temple stay.

I left very early on Saturday morning and arrived at Koyasan about 1pm. First, I did some simple site-seeing: Kongoubuji, the main temple of the area, and an area called the Garan which had numerous pagodas, temple buildings, and a treasure hall. It was rainy both days I was there, but it added a kind of peaceful, mysterious ambience. Here are some pictures.

  Kongoubuji is famous for its large dry gardens. The second one is supposed to resemble monks listening to a sermon.

Daito, the large pagoda

There was a group of Chinese tourists on a pilgrimage that stopped in front of every building in the Garan to chant.

About 4pm, I headed to the temple I was staying at – Eikouin. I got really nervous upon arrival though because they didn’t have a reservation for me and the temple was completely booked for the night! (Apparently, my co-worker thought I wanted a reservation for JUNE 10^th…) Luckily though, the two monks I talked to remembered that there was an open room in the monks quarters, so I got to stay there! Then the young monk led me to my room. I took the opportunity to ask some random questions about his life as a monk. He’s young, only 24, and is the lowest rank of monk. His clothing is brown, he doesn’t have to shave his head, and the rules are still rather relaxed. So relaxed in fact, that he has a bellybutton piercing!! A monk with a belly button piercing!! Once he left, I started copying the Buddhist Heart Sutra (I think…) in calligraphy as he’d shown me how to do. Then I went to a different part of the temple and studied zazen, a form of sitting meditation, with one of the other monks. This was really cool. He gave a mini lecture of sorts before hand, telling us about the Sanskrit character “a” which was hanging in calligraphy in the front of the room, explaining the technique and rationale behind zazen, etc. Following that, they brought a traditional Buddhist dinner to my room. Buddhists don’t eat meat, seafood, or onions (onions are said to be made up of thousands of small beings, so eating onions is far worse karmically than eating meat because you’re killing many creatures). It was actually rather usual Japanese food to me – miso soup, vegetable tempura, pickled vegetables, rice, a seaweed salad, an orange, rice, and this ridiculously good sesame tofu. Breakfast was similar. But there’s a certain mindset in Buddhism that we should be lucky to have any food at all, so you should eat everything you’re given. Unfortunately for me, both meals included mushrooms!!! This was the first time in probably 10 years that I ate mushrooms! And I did NOT enjoy it! But hey, that’s how it goes.

The next day I woke up ridiculously early (well for me at least – 6am) to watch a few ceremonies. The first was a chant ceremony. Three monks sat in front of a (smallish) statue of a Buddha and chanted. They read the chant from a book, using some dissonant harmony. Each of us “spectators” took turns going to the altar, taking 3 pinches of a powder (powdered incense I think), holding each to their forehead before throwing it in a pot. I didn’t do this as I didn’t know what it meant at the time. I later learned that it has a dual purpose – first, it purifies the person, and second, the smoke is food for the Buddha. After the chanting was over, we bowed in front of the statue before heading to a different building for the second ceremony.

The second ceremony was a fire ceremony. One monk sat near the back drumming and chanting while another sat in front of a fire pit facing a warrior god statue, surrounded by small bowls filled with various plants and liquids. He started building up a simple fire, then threw in the various plants and liquids (always in threes – 3 pinches of this plant, 3 scoops of that liquid). Then he threw on (3 at a time) these small wooden sticks that looked a lot like disposable chopsticks. I lost count of how many there were but it was well over 100. Whatever these were, they made the fire flare up until it was licking the ceiling! Once it reached this height, the monk took these wooden prayer blocks and waved them into the fire (3 times) as he said briefly what the requests were. Then he said more ritual things while the fire died down. When it was almost completely out, we were told to wave the smoke over ourselves, then bow in front of the warrior god statue.

Where I stayed

The meditation hall

After some breakfast and relaxation, I went to see the famous cemetery, Okunoin. It was rather overwhelming. There were so many different kinds of grave markers – stupas made of stone or wood, torii gates, Buddha statues, gilded monuments, etc. It was also rainy and foggy which added an air of mystery. Throughout the cemetery, there were 739 massively tall cypress trees.

It's days like today...

Golden Week '08

This blog has seemed to have turned into a bit more of a travel log than I’d have liked, but there hasn’t really been too much else blog-worthy going on lately. Anyway, here’s yet another travel entry!

This past weekend was the second of “Golden Week,” a two week period where there are 4 national holidays, which makes it easy to travel. I used the 4-day weekend to go north to visit my friend Charles. It was a very last minute trip. I didn’t want to waste my last 4-day weekend, so even though I didn’t really know what was in Ibaraki, I decided I may as well go! Charles family was in town thru Saturday, so I spent Saturday doing my own thing and met up with him on Sunday.

Saturday, I woke up really early so I could make it to Ibaraki and still have some time to actually do stuff. While the trip was almost 6 hours, it wasn’t so bad. Random conversations, text messaging, and good music made the time go rather quickly. I arrived at Fukuroda around 230 to see the Fukuroda Waterfall, one of the “three most beautiful in Japan.” (For those of you that study Japanese, be careful to use the の when referring to this waterfall. 袋田の滝 is Fukuroda Waterfall, but apparently ふくろだたき means to beat someone within an inch of their life. =-o) It was really different from other waterfalls I’ve seen and while I’m not sure I’d call it one of the most beautiful, it’s uniqueness definitely made it worth the trip. Monday was Children’s Day, so there were carp windsocks everywhere to celebrate. Here are some pictures!

The next day, I met up with Charles and we went to church. It was really interesting to experience a small rural church in Japan (not to mention my surprise that there was a church in such a rural place). Then we checked out some of the Mito sites. This is the Art Tower Mito which has a concert hall, museum, etc. We went to see the contemporary art exhibit by a guy called Miyajima called Art In You. It was an exhibit using photography, painting, and installation art incorporating the numbers 9-1 to represent the life-death cycle. I’m not sure how much longer it’s there, but I’d highly recommend it. This is the Art Tower.

Next, we went to Kairakuen, one of the “three most beautiful gardens in Japan.” (I should go back and count how many times I’ve used a “three most beautiful ~” in Japan phrase. It’s starting to get rather annoying!) It was HUGE. Most of the gardens I’ve visited in Japan have been smallish stroll gardens where you pay to enter, follow a path, etc. This one was far more like an American park with huge open areas picnic or play Frisbee, soccer, etc, a lake that had swan boats, free entrance, parking everywhere, and no clear delineation of where the park began and ended. Because I didn’t find it to be particularly “Japanese” at all, I’m really surprised that Japan considers it one of the most beautiful (not that I disagree). We found an area that was a bit more of a traditional stroll garden with a large, traditional (mafia) house. Unfortunately at this point, we lost most of the light that allows for good pictures.

The next day we woke up ridiculously early to go to Nikko, about 3 hours each way, but definitely worth it, despite being rainy and packed with people. First we went to two of the 3 famous temples in Nikko – Rinnoji and Toshogu. On our way, we saw Shinkyo Bridge. Rinno-ji is famous for its three massive Buddhas, which were rather big, but I didn’t find them particularly impressive, probably as I’ve seen too many in Japan. =) What was interesting to me, however, was a small statue of a warrior god with fire behind him, but in seated with the traditional hand positions of Buddhas. I’ve never seen a warrior god so portrayed before and wish I could’ve understood the caption! Then we went to Toshogu, where the original ‘See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil’ monkeys are. They were really small, but I’d heard that and so wasn’t disappointed. The temple was also rather extravagant with gold leaf everywhere.

Last, we went to Kegon Waterfall (華厳の滝), also one of the three (wow, two out of three on the same trip! I’m amazing). I’d been worried we wouldn’t have time to see it as it was an hour bus ride outside the city, but we made it a priority and ended up having extra time! It was spectacular!! An elevator went to a lower observation deck, so we could really see the power of the waterfalls. From the top, I thought it was just a really tall waterfall, but from the observation deck, we could see that there were actually numerous tiers to the falls and 12 smaller waterfalls. Gorgeous. One might even say glorious.

My last day, we met up with my friend Becky who was visiting Tokyo in Ushiku to see the Ushiku Daibutsu is the largest free-standing Buddha in the world. None of my Japanese friends or co-workers had ever heard of it, we shocked me as it was so large. One friend had a theory that because it’s new, it’s not famous – that Japanese people prefer old things, so a new Buddha, even though large, it’s given much thought. Anyway, it was overwhelmingly huge!! The Buddha is 120 meters tall, twice the height and three times the volume of the Statue of Liberty! An elevator goes up 80 meters, but there was all this really weird stuff inside like small plastic buddhas lit up inside with fluorescent colored lights. Really strange. There was also a huge room filled with 3300 small golden Buddhas. The view wasn’t particular incredible, mostly because most of the windows were really small and the larger ones had grates over them so you couldn’t see much. But it’s still fun to say that I’ve been inside it. =)

Leave it to Japan to have a statue of the “holy poo” of the Buddha.

This is the size of one of the Buddha’s toes!

Overall, a great weekend filled with loads of randomness, good conversation, and beautiful site-seeing! Ibaraki is an often overlooked prefecture, so I’m really pleased I had an opportunity to see it!