Enlightenment and Deer Feeding at Nara

Yesterday, Trisha and I took the train to Nara, Japan's first real capital. We first visited the Kofuku-ji temple which has a five story pagoda that is a symbol of the city [there seems to be a "Hello Kitty goes to ___" theme here in Japan. In every city they have souvenior crap with Hello Kitty and whatever the city's symbol is. So in Himeji, there is Hello Kitty and the castle keychains and sweat rags (really they're washcloths, but the Japanese use them to wipe the sweat off their faces so we call them sweat rags). In Nara, it was Hello Kitty and the pagoda/deer/Buddha trinkets. I should start a collection!]

("Hello Trisha goes to Nara")
But back to topic - we walked on towards the temple which houses the Great Buddha, and on the way were attacked by aggressive deer looking for food! These deer are another symbol of Nara and in pre-Buddhist times were considered messengers of the gods. They appear to have a status and attitude similiar to cows in India. They know they're sacred and they're not afraid to remind you of that! We bought some deer cakes to feed them and they went wild! One actually jumped up and put his foot on my chest when I held the biscuits over my head! Another bit Trisha's shirt! It was incredibly bold for deer! There are about 1200 deer in the city and they roam freely, on the sidewalks along busy streets and in the walkways to the tourist destinations (where they know they will encounter tourists with snacks!)

Finally, we fought our way through crowds of deer and the tourists feeding them to our real destination - the Great Buddha statue! The temple building which houses this statue is the largest wooden building in the world! This bronze statue is huge... 16 meters high - the handy converter on my cell phone tells me this is 52 feet high. Supposedly it was built as a charm against small pox. Around the back of the building, one of the pillars had a hole in it, exactly the size of the statue's nostril, maybe a foot wide and a foot and half tall. Those who can squeeze through this hole are ensured of enlightenment. Little kids wiggled through it with no trouble. Trisha went first and had considerably more difficulty. It took her a few times, but she finally made it through to a round of applause from the crowd watching! I also made it through (you can see the top of my head in the photo as I am about halfway through) and am therefore ensured of enlightenment! Maybe when I get back to the States, there can be a statue of me, and people can wiggle through my nostril for enlightenment!

After we were ensured of our enlightenment, we continued wandering through the great park. There were many more deer, and many more temples, and many more shrines.

And one shrine in particular with many, many stone lanterns which I couldn't stop taking photos of.

We stopped for lunch and hoped for the drizzle which had turned into a steady rain to stop. It sort of did, but we decided to visit Nara's museum as a respite. That was more incredible than we expected, and we were so glad the rain had made us head indoors. The museum had absolutely beautiful statues of Buddha, and Shinto gods, and some other creatures (apparently companions of some sort to Buddha). They were really amazingly well preserved and wonderful works of art.

My Apartment

Finally! I've been here almost a month now (hard to believe) and I finally am settled in enough to take photos of my apartment. The previous tenant had left a fair amount of stuff, so it took me some time to decide what I wanted to keep, and what to get rid of. It took me almost a month to convince myself that the apartment is better without the couch he left.

My apartment is long and narrow. As you enter through the front door, there is to the left the room containing the infamous toilet shower! I've taken a couple of photos of it - showing the console where you can select a butt massage or seat heater. And once flushed, the tank refills by sending the water through the faucet so you can wash your hands right then and there. The problem is that there is no place for soap (in fact, in many public bathrooms there is no soap), so I never use this faucet.

If you head to the right after entering, you go through the hallway/kitchen. There are a couple of photos showing that "room" from each end. The kitchen is little, the fridge is little, the stove is little, the cupboards are tiny, the freezer is tiny, and there is no oven. So I eat out fairly often!

Here is a photo of the vanity that is in a little room across from the kitchen. This room also has a washing machine. Attached to this room is the bathing room. There is a large tub, and a shower. The shower drains through a drain in the floor, not into the bathtub. As you can see from the hangers abover the bathtub, this room will also serve as my clothes-dryer once winter sets in. I currently hang my laundry on the balcony.








The main room of the apartment is the bedroom/dining/living area. It's quite narrow. I can reach from the bed to the table with no problem. I have a small closet, and drawers under the bed. The AC unit is in this room, so I often will close the door to just cool this room rather than the rest of the apartment.

So this is where I live. I don't spend much time in here though. It seems like I'll just get home and have to leave again in 15 minutes for the next social event. Today (holiday) is the first day I've been home for several hours at a stretch! But I'm off now to run some errands and shop!
Happy Autumnal Equinox!

A bit of beach time!

On Saturday, a bunch of us went to Ieshima, a small island about 45 minutes by ferry from Himeji.

Me, Katie and Taube on the ferry deck

The first island the ferry stopped at.

Our destination - an unhabitated island with a nature center and cabins for rent.

We went with several Japanese friends. For them, the main event was barbequeing. We Americans headed right for the beach! But we were very grateful for their barbeque skills after our dip! It certainly wasn't an American style BBQ. They brought lots of veggies along and noodles, as well as different meats, corn on the cob and potatoes in foil. The main dish was stir-fried noodles (I've already forgotten what they're called in Japanese) and they were delicious!

Homeward bound - RJ, Heather, Mitch and Merry

Today is a holiday, Autumnal Equinox, so I have the day off. After such a busy weekend, I plan to just relax today, maybe do a little shopping, and just maybe a bit of cleaning so I can finally take photos of my apartment to post on this blog!

Kyoto

Yesterday, I took a day trip to Kyoto. It's one of the major touristy cities in Japan and is only an hour and a half by train from Himeji. I went with Suvanya ("Sue"), a JET from South Africa who lives in our building. We didn't have any major plans, just wanted to see a few sites. We certainly accomplished that!

We first went to Fushimi Inari, a Shinto shrine with hundreds of red torii gates (the toriis generally indicate that it's a Shinto shrine, rather than a Buddhist temple). It was amazing - scenes from Memoirs of a Geisha were filmed there. There were several main buildings,

then thousands of red toriis going up paths into the mountainside.

All along the way are lots of statues of foxes and little praying places (don't really know how to describe them otherwise)

After visiting the shrine, we headed back towards central Kyoto and saw a Buddhist temple there. We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but it wasn't really as stunning as Fushimi Inari was. Then we stopped at a beautiful Japanese garden to wander around until our feet were too sore. Rain looked imminent, so we headed back to the amazing Kyoto station (really incredible architecture - very modern) for some window shopping and to look for the observation level (which Lonely Planet said was on the mysterious and apparently non-existent 15th floor). Just as we got to our train platform, it started pouring! There are still lots of sites to be seen in Kyoto, so I plan to make several more day trips there!

Joyfull Humor

A couple of funny stories from tonight, but first I have to describe my new favorite place in Japan! It's a restaurant called Joyfull (yes, with two 'l's) and it's kind of like a Denny's (I'm not sure when I was last in a Denny's, but it's as I imagine a Denny's to be). There are booths and the little foot high plates of glass between booths. The menus has breakfast items and casserole type dishes. I ordered a penne pasta dish and it was made with cream of mushroom soup. OK, so I didn't really like that but I am willing to overlook it because they have Pepsi!! Not Pepsi Twist, either! It's the first time I've seen pure Pepsi in Japan and I was so "Joyfull"! I know I'll be going there often, because it's also an all you can "drink bar".
But back to the humorous parts of the evening. When we first arrived in Japan, the previous tenant had left a coffee maker in my apartment. Since I don't drink coffee, I passed it on to Trisha (you've heard of Trisha - she's the one with the infamous "I used to be a man" quote!). So tonight Trisha was saying that it is a magical coffee pot. She went on to say that she puts the coffee grounds in to make coffee, and then she opens it up to remove the grounds, and they've disappeared! She's looked everywhere for these grounds. My response was "Are you sure you're not using instant coffee?" The look on her face was priceless! But that shows two points - how we have no idea what groceries we're buying, and how amazing the Japanese electronics are (or we think they should be!)
The other funny thing tonight - as we walked back home from Joyfull, we stopped in a very large used book store. I asked the clerk if there was an English section. Yes, there was and he led the way... to a total of 22 books. Not even 22 different books as there were multiple copies of several books. We laughed so hard and agreed to return with a camera. So stay tuned for that photo (and maybe a photo of Joyfull too!)

Kobe!

Yesterday I took a day trip to Kobe. It's only a 1/2 hour away - if you get on the express train.
It's larger than Himeji - about 1 1/2 million (Himeji is a 1/2 million), and I was definitely looking for a day in the big city! I met up with a friend who took me on walking tour of the highlights of the city - Ikura Shrine, Chinatown, the port area and Port Tower, and the historic part of town where the ex-pats used to live. We had a tasty lunch of nachos and bean burrito (both were yummy, but not much can compare to Phoenix's Mexican food).
Kobe is a very international city - I saw The Gap, Patagonia, Eddie Bauer, and LL Bean stores. I stopped into The Gap to see what they had - everything was in XXS, XS, and S sizes! I also wandered over to the Earthquake Memorial Park (remember the 1995 earthquake in Kobe which killed 6,000 people?) It was very cool -they kept a part of the pier as it was damaged. Unfortunately my camera batteries died just then, and I didn't have extra (what sort of traveller am I, if I can't even remember extra camera batteries!).
Here are a few photos: the entrance to Ikura Shrine, people praying at the shrine, and some wooden messages holding wishes (Aiko, can you tell us what these are for?), me at Kobe port, Kobe Port Tower, a shopping area (I love the way they cover these areas. They're filled with stores of every kind), and plastic food on display outside a restaurant (these displays are very, very common.)


I really enjoyed my day in Kobe and certainly will be going back. Maybe even today. There is a Costco near there, and some people from the apartment are going there today. I offered to stay home and watch "little Sara", the 18 month old of another teacher, so maybe that's my plan for today instead.

On Thursday night, the seven grade teachers (what they call first grade, because it’s the first grade in the junior high school) went out for a beginning of term dinner. At least, I think that is what the occasion was. I’m not actually a first grade teacher, but I sit at their table in the staff room so they invited me along.

I thought I would have no trouble finding it; I knew the general area where the restaurant is, and they had given me a piece of paper with the name of the restaurant written in Japanese characters. But after walking around the block a couple of times, I stopped to ask for directions. I said “doko wa” (where is…) and pointed to the piece of paper with the restaurant’s name. The man sounded out “Japanese restaurant”. Apparently that was the name of this place. Not a very useful name! So I wandered around a little more and finally stopped into the police box (a little booth where several policemen hang out. There’s hardly any crime here, so I’m not sure what they do to keep busy.) They pointed out the restaurant directly opposite their booth. Sure enough, their sign said in English “Japanese Restaurant”, but I was trying to match the Japanese characters on my piece of paper!

Luckily I was only a few minutes late (promptness is very important here). The other 11 teachers were all seated around a table. It’s a weird style of table. You leave your shoes at the entrance to the table booth, then walk around the table on this platform. I always think I’m supposed to sit on my knees at these restaurants, and about halfway through the meal, when my feet have fallen asleep, I notice that there is plenty of leg room under the table.

Dinner was huge. I think there were nine courses. The first were several small dishes of assorted things – pumpkin pudding (not sweet though), and some by-product of tofu (at least that’s what I understood of the explanation) with salmon eggs, and some mushrooms in a spicy sauce. After that was sashimi – raw fish. Then some tempura – lotus root and something unidentifiable. Next was some sort of custard with mushrooms and fish. Then came a tasty looking salad, until I realized it was entirely composed of sliced raw onions and conger eel! Next they brought out charcoal braziers to the table with a wok kind of thing on top (this is what is shown in the photo) and we cooked our own vegetables and beef. Then came rice with mushrooms and hazelnuts. Next was miso soup! I couldn’t believe it – I kept thinking, this must be the last course, and then they would appear with another dish! Finally we had tiny pieces of tiramisu for dessert.

Of course there were plenty of drinks flowing and some apparently hilarious stories and/or teasing of one of the teachers! After dinner, which had lasted three hours, some of the teachers decided to go on for karaoke, but I was exhausted. They said they had stayed out until 11 pm. Not as late as I had expected them to stay out but too late for exhausted me!

Twelve on Twelve (September)

Twelve on Twelve is a concept which I am morphing for my own purposes. Basically on the 12th of every month, I am going to take 12 photos of everyday life here (to prevent me from only posting photos of the touristy things I do.) (Thanks to Bob S. for this great idea!) Today though, I'm going to cheat a bit (yes, I know, cheating already doesn't bode well for this intention, but it's just today, I promise!). I took only ten photos today.
1. A Japanese Seven Eleven! (yes, I know a Seven Eleven is not really photoworthy, but this one has Snickers bars!)

2. Toilet slippers - you have to change into these communal slippers when you go to the bathroom. Seems less hygienic to me than just wearing shoes into the toilet stall, but no one asked my opinion.

3. A building across from my bus stop. Everyday I wonder what it is. The only clue is the animals on the sign, maybe it's a vet? But it's never open...

4. A typical Japanese playground (sorry, there were no kids around to make this photo more interesting)

5. This was a mystery for the first week- all the major sidewalks have this raised yellow line. Finally figured out what they are for: blind people to run their canes along. You can see as you reach an intersection, the pattern changes. How cool! (I'm sure the question running through your minds is, are there many blind people there? Answer: No, but they're ready!)
6. The train station in downtown Himeji

7. Myukidori - a sort of open air mall like thing - lots and lots of cool shops inside!

8. Our apartment building

9. A beer vending machine right across the street from our building!
10. The second floor patio of our building. I sit on that step in the foreground to use the internet.